West Yorkshire's Sporting Heroes

This article attempts to offer an insight into the benefits of merging sport and heritage work, through the experiences of the Sporting Heroes project being delivered by the West Yorkshire Archive Service. This summer, the Olympic and Paralympic Games will open in London before millions of spectators across the globe. There is no doubting the opportunities for raising and improving the national profile and London tourism industry, and also increasing local jobs, housing and business trade through the Olympic site alone. However, the wider question being addressed here is how the rest of the UK can take advantage of the once-in-a-lifetime event coming to these shores, in particular the heritage sector, to create a legacy of sporting archival collections (mostly in digital format) and stronger, broader means of partnership-working. To add an alternative angle to this discussion, it considers whether the phenomenon of the London 2012 Games has in fact been such a driving force behind the emergence of sports heritage projects and their potentially successful outcomes.