events

Following successful events in August (Mexborough) and September (Askern), we are holding another ‘Heritage Happening’. This time it’s at the Eco-Power Stadium in South Stand Reception on 28th and 29th November:

The exhibition will be open 11am-4pm on Friday November 28 and 11am-1pm on Saturday November 29 prior to our home game against Peterborough United.

This 2-day event will mark the opening of a permanent exhibition in the Reception Area of the Polypipe South Stand. This is the latest development in the IRWT project to build the ‘Doncaster Rovers Football Museum’.

Alongside the museum project, IRWT have been working with Friends of Hyde Park Cemetery to identify the final resting places of many of the club’s earliest players. These include club founder Albert Jenkins and John Mitchell, later of Newton Heath (Manchester United) and Bolton Wanderers (for whom he played on the opening day of the Football League, in which the first ever league goal was scored).

Most of that 1879 ‘first eleven’ have now been located. They lie in Hyde Park Cemetery, a short distance from the Eco-Power Stadium. Unfortunately many of the graves are unmarked and their exact locations are not visible to the public.

We are determined to create a permanent memorial at Hyde Park Cemetery which will honour and remember these key figures in the early years of DRFC. The required costs will be raised through a crowdfunding campaign similar to the one already in process for Len Goodson,  Rovers’ first league goalscorer:

https://www.fohpc.org.uk/goodson/

To have a permanent memorial to all the former Rovers players buried at Hyde Park Cemetery would be a fitting way of recognising the part those individuals played in the formation and history of our club. We have also located and been in touch with some living descendants.

We wanted to build a museum which could display and celebrate 150 years of DRFC history by the time we reach that anniversary in September 2029. So we had to start the project by finding Albert Jenkins. Then we’ve gradually found almost all his teammates. They’re mostly in Doncaster’s historic cemetery between the stadium and the city centre, among 56,000 other graves. 

Those players founded the club. Our task, as a group of volunteer fans, is to found a museum both virtual and physical. 

Thanks to the club, we now have the use of a permanent exhibition space at the stadium. This event is only the start of the next stage of the museum project. We think it’ll be a lot of fun and many fans will want to be involved.

Club Historian John Coyle has been part of our team since Day 1 and we’ve been in touch with several other Rovers experts and keen fans seeking input. Many people have done some great work on Rovers history over the years. We aim to bring all that knowledge and expertise to bear on the museum project. The club’s 150th birthday gives us all an obvious target date to deliver it.

Our Askern 'Heritage Happening' was on Friday 5 and Saturday 6 September prior to the home game v Bradford City.

Our Mexborough 'Heritage Happening' was on Friday 15 and Saturday 16 August prior to the home game v Wycombe Wanderers.

We attended the Discovering Collections Discovering Communities conference (incorporating History Day North) organised by National Archives, British Library, JISC etc. We won a bursary to attend and published a poster on the art element of our project:

Richard Stevens & Colin Harker / In Rovers We Trust CIC  (2025) Football heritage, arts and crafts and community engagement: The Doncaster Rovers Football Museum project. Poster. DCDC25 conference: Discovering Collections Discovering Communities, Durham University. 

Our test event was with the Rovers Connects group at the stadium on Tuesday 22 July for one hour. It took over two hours to set up and another two hours to take down again. The reception was positive and we learnt a lot.