Preston North End footballing legend Sir Tom Finney and a 100-year-old football fan joined second year history university students yesterday to unveil their Community History Project.

The project, called First Match Memories, is the result of three months work by the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) students, and brought up many different memories for the fans.

They include making footballs out of their mum's washing, going to watch Manchester United in the 1950s and playing women's football in the 1970s.

As part of their UCLan course, Naomi Etchells from Tameside, Jayne Waring from Darwen, and Martin Walker from Bury, recorded the first memories of 18 passionate football fans who ranged in age from 19 to 100 years.

Interviewees at the event, held at the National Football Museum, Preston, included amateur footballer Gail Newsham, author of In A League Of Their Own; Nicky Reid, who had two five-year spells playing for Manchester City in the 1970s and 1980s, as well as family and friends.

Student Naomi said: "We're all football fans and this was an opportunity for us as part of our history course to hear and record lots of interesting stories about people's memories of something that people enjoy. We're really excited to have Sir Tom Finney coming down to see what we've done.

"We want to thank Dr Billy Frank, Alexander Jackson, the link between us and the museum, and Wiebke Weyh, the Collection Officer at the museum for all their help."

Dr Billy Frank, senior lecturer in the Centre for Employability through Humanities, added: "The Community History Project allows the students to work together on an interesting historical topic and this group have really gone above and beyond what was needed.

"They have put in so much work and they are clearly showing how UCLan students are working well with an established institution such as the Football Museum, which is right on our doorstep. We hope these links will continue."

Other interviewees including centenarian Edward Thornley and Derek Stanton, a local dialect poet, opened the project with a poem about referees and closed it with a song about Blackburn Rovers.

The exhibition also contained other collections including old newspapers and matchday programmes.

UCLan's Department of History has undertaken a wide range of historical research projects for clients' over the past decade, including BAE Systems, Fulwood Barracks and Tulketh Mill to name but three.

The Department is always on the lookout for suitable new projects to research.

If you would like to suggest a potential project then please write to: Steve Caunce at the Department of Humanities, University of Central Lancashire, Preston, PR1 2HE.

In the last Government-sponsored research assessment UCLan's Department of History was graded as producing work which is of national and international significance.