The Keeper of 80 Footballs: Simon Francis's Staircase Museum

Simon Francis's 80 Mitre Balls

Simon Francis has gathered 80 Mitre footballs arranged above his stairs. Most collectors chase rarity. He collects objects handled, discussed, and displayed in a domestic space.

The staircase functions as an archive. Every ball has sat there through seasons of play, promotions and relegations, and the shifting palette of English football kits and tournaments. To walk past them is to move through decades of the sport's grassroots and professional life simultaneously.

Mitre's Role in English Football

Mitre supplied the official Premier League match ball from its 1992 inception until 2000. The company returned to supply Football League and lower-division games through the 2000s and beyond. Their TM Tech and Super Glider models became familiar across pitches from the Championship to non-league. For collectors, Mitre balls represent an era when the game's commercialization was accelerating but still visibly connected to traditional manufacturing hubs like Buxton in the Peak District.

Francis's collection spans multiple eras: early 1990s textured surfaces, the glossy synthetic shift of the late 1990s, and the advanced panel designs of the 2010s. Each ball carries the fingerprints of its period, from stitching patterns and air valve placements to the thermal bonding techniques that changed how the ball behaved in wet conditions.

Display Discipline

Displaying 80 footballs without the arrangement becoming clutter requires discipline. Each sphere demands visibility, angled slightly and spaced to catch light so that panel geometry and branding remain legible. This is curation, not storage.

Stairs are transitional spaces, places of passage rather than停留. By placing footballs there, Francis transforms a functional area into a contemplative one. Every ascent and descent becomes a reminder of the game's material culture, its evolution, and its persistence.

The Keeper's Distinction

Francis describes himself not as an investor but as a keeper. The distinction matters. Investors track appreciation. Keepers track continuity. A football from 1993 carries the same basic dimensions as one from 2023: 68-70 centimeters in circumference and 410-450 grams in weight. Yet the materials, aerodynamics, and manufacturing precision tell a different story about how the game has changed.

The collection above the stairs is an informal museum of football's industrial and cultural history, curated by someone who understands that the ball is the game's central object. It is the only piece of equipment shared by both teams, the only object in constant motion, the first thing a child kicks and the last thing a professional touches before retirement.

An Accessible Archive

Museum balls sit in climate-controlled cases, handled only by conservators. These footballs remain in a home, displayed in natural light and visible to visitors and family alike. The collection breathes, accumulating dust and light in equal measure and wearing its years honestly.

Francis's staircase offers an uncurated, deeply personal argument for why the ball matters. Not as commodity or branded object, but as a vessel of memory and evidence of the game's continuous reinvention through simpler means.

The 80 balls are a starting position, one collector's answer to a question every fan asks at some point: what would you keep if you could only keep one thing from your relationship with the game?