150 Years of Wire: Preserving Our Past Through People
As Warrington Wolves marks an incredible 150 years of history, our recent heritage event at the weekend wasn’t just about shirts, programmes, medals or photographs. It was about people. The memories they carry, the stories they protect, and the time they freely give to make sure the club’s past is never forgotten.
At the heart of the celebration were two of our heritage volunteers, Angie and Phil – both very different in their journeys, but united by the same love for the club and its history.
Angie: Turning Boxes Into Memories
Angie first became involved with the club in 2019, and during Covid she says it really kept her sane. What started as volunteering support quickly became a vital role within the heritage and archive collection.
“When I came in, there were lots of areas, lots of boxes, things that needed sorting out,” Angie explains. “They needed organising into something easy to find.”
Since then, Angie has spent countless hours carefully cataloguing memorabilia – organising items by era, theme and year, ensuring that when moments like the 150th anniversary come around, the club’s history is ready to be shared.
This particular heritage event took around three weeks of preparation, locating items, grouping them into the right eras, and curating displays that would spark memories for lifelong supporters and newer fans alike.
“These things shouldn’t be hidden away in cupboards,” Angie says. “They need to be preserved, but they also need to be out where people can see them.”
For Angie, the event isn’t the end goal – it’s a stepping stone. A future where memorabilia is on permanent display, forming part of a lasting museum experience, and where supporters are encouraged to bring their own treasured items out of lofts and garages to be shared with future generations.
Having spent her career as a high school teacher, Angie has seen first-hand how people grow, develop and find confidence. That connection continues through rugby league – from teaching former and current WIRE players like Matthew Blythe (Heritage Number #1077) and Danny Walker (Heritage Number #1149), to watching them run out at the Halliwell Jones Stadium.
“If you can see people grow up and give their all, in sport or in life, you feel like you’ve enjoyed the journey with them,” she says.
For Angie, Warrington Wolves is more than a club.
“It’s the heart of the community. Everywhere you go, people talk about rugby league. This town buzzes because of it.”
Phil: A Lifelong Fan, A Living Archive
Phil’s connection to the club stretches back even further – all the way to childhood.
“I started going when I was about seven or eight,” he says. “My dad had been going since just after the war. I was hooked straight away.”
Self-described as a “rugby geek”, Phil was never destined to play the game, but he was always fascinated by the stories, statistics and history behind it. When the opportunity came to volunteer as part of a lottery-funded heritage project, he didn’t hesitate.
That project helped create an online version of the heritage wall, allowing supporters to add their own memories digitally – a powerful way of keeping personal stories alongside official records.
Over the years, Phil has helped catalogue programmes, artefacts and correspondence, often spending evenings quietly sorting through history. The recent heritage event itself took about a week of physical setup, but months – and in some cases years – of work behind the scenes.
For Phil, the archive is about more than preservation.
“It’s about the stories attached to the stuff,” he explains. “You see people walking around saying ‘I remember that game’ or ‘I remember that shirt’. It brings everyone together.”
One standout moment for Phil was uncovering a collection belonging to Albert Johnson (Heritage Number #394), including his Great Britain cap and letters sent during the Second World War – correspondence that showed how different the game, and life, once was.
“That kind of thing gives you real insight into how rugby league was in another time.”
Seeing supporters, descendants of former players and lifelong fans sharing memories during the event made all the work worthwhile.
“It’s fantastic. The number of people here, the conversations, the stories – it shows this isn’t just a game.”
A Living Archive for the Next Generation
On the night of the event, Neil Kelly, CEO of the Warrington Wolves Community Foundation, spoke about the launch of the club’s new online heritage archive – a project that both Angie and Phil have been working tirelessly on for months.
The online archive brings together photographs, programmes, letters, memorabilia and supporter memories in one accessible place, allowing fans to explore the club’s history wherever they are. Like the club itself, it’s a living collection – still growing, still evolving, and constantly being added to as new items and stories come to light.
While the archive is very much a work in progress, the hope is that supporters will take the time to explore it, reconnect with their own memories, and perhaps even be inspired to contribute items or stories of their own.
More Than History – A Shared Future
As Warrington Wolves celebrates 150 years, this heritage event was a reminder that the club’s story doesn’t live only in trophies or records, but in people like Angie and Phil – and in every supporter who carries a memory of the Wire.
Preserving our past protects our future. And with the continued support of volunteers and fans, the next generation will have just as many stories to tell.
If you have memorabilia, photographs, or memories you’d like to share, we’d love to hear from you. Together, we can make sure the story of Warrington Wolves continues to be seen, shared and celebrated.