FOR almost 120 years it was a railway station – a rather magnificent railway station, a Grade II* listed building – and then a transport museum.

Now the former Monkwearmouth station at Sunderland is to become a football museum – a fans’ museum says Michael Ganley, its founder, inspiration and chief benefactor.

He got the keys from the city council before Christmas, hopes to have an opening party on June 15 – the classical station’s 170th birthday – already welcomes visitors simply to watch a work in progress.

“We’ve had everyone from little kids to a chap of 102 who was totally carried away with it all,” says Michael, 47.

“We’ve had women in who said they had no interest in football and within 15 minutes were sitting on old seats from Roker Park, drinking Bovril. It’s been fantastic.”

Before the council offered Monkwearmouth, his collection had been on display in the Bridges shopping centre and – “crazy visitor numbers” – the city library.

“I was like a kid in a sweet shop, blown away, when they offered me this. They’ve been brilliant,” he says.

The building will retain its original features, principally the classic old booking office. Still the coast line from Newcastle to Middlesbrough and the Tyne and Wear Metro pass the window. “It’s always been a station, I want to tell the story about that, too,” says Michael.

“We could have gone to some industrial estate building and turned it into something quite nice, but this is so thrilling. It’s not about bragging rights, though, but about what we’re going to do with it all.

“Eighty per cent of the people who come here won’t know that this is where Raich Carter and Co alighted with the FA Cup in 1937, but if people just want to come and watch the trains, that’s fine.”

WE’RE there with John Briggs, himself a retired railwayman from Darlington, who’s handing over the red-and-white striped Sunderland children’s shirt that had been a Christmas present in 1954 and remained in a drawer ever since.

John was five – the shirt a bit too big back then and now several sizes too small. Michael’s genuinely excited, feels the quality, admires the stitching. “You can tell it was about 1954, they introduced V-necks in 1957,” he says.

By happy coincidence, John had also been a booking clerk at Monkwearmouth before the station closed in 1967. Little seemed to have changed. “Gas lamps, coal fires, always a huge pot of tea on the go,” he recalls.

Already the museum has acquired the boardroom furniture from Sunderland’s former home at Roker Park, long-serving former physio Jimmy Watters’s treatment table and all manner of match-worn shirts, boots, programmes and other memorabilia – all with stories to tell.

Other items range from the screenplay from George Best: the Film, signed by Best himself, to the Wembley tracksuit worn by Sunderland goal scoring hero Ian Porterfield – bought on-line from a second-hand shop in the Ukraine.

“I spent weeks wondering if I’d been ripped off by a Russian conman,” says Michael.

Much is from his own huge collection, much bought at auction – “I’m either an enthusiast or I’m barmy, my wife thinks I’m cooking for certain” – though he insists that it will by no means just be a Sunderland fans’ museum.

“The National Football Museum’s in Manchester but that doesn’t mean it’s a Manchester football museum. This will be unique, it’s for everyone. There may be a bit more Sunderland bias on match days, but that’s it.

“There’s a university 250 yards from here. I want people from all over the world to learn about North-East football and beyond.”

If someone walked in with an old Newcastle United shirt? “We’d love it, welcome it 100 per cent. It’s still football, isn’t it?

FINALLY, almost reluctantly – for he is the most amiable and agreeable of men – it feels necessary to mention Sunderland’s present predicament. “It’s heartbreaking,” says Michael. “It’s not just the club that’s affected, in different ways it’s everyone in the city.

“Going down (to the third division) in 1986-87 was bad but this is different, because the financial implications are so much greater.

“I’m one of those who won’t give up until it’s mathematically impossible. If it does happen, maybe this museum will do something to cheer everyone up. There are a lot of great things about Sunderland, I hope this can be one of the best.”

STRAIGHT from the Fans’ Museum to the Stadium of Light, a short stride distant, where 1973 FA Cup final hero Vic Halom is addressing the monthly meeting of Sunderland’s Senior Supporters’ Association.

It’s chocker. More may be present in the Riverside Brasserie than in the entire ground at the end of recent matches.

First, the meeting hears apologies for absence – Lee Cattermole, someone says, and raises a laugh – secondly considers its nomination for player of the year.

It’s awarded with little debate to John O’Shea – “played more games than he should have done,” says the proposer, a curious but perhaps valid argument in this most perverse of seasons.

Just about the last time the column was in Vic Halom’s company was outside Roker Park, March 1992, when he was the LibDems’ surprise candidate for Sunderland North in the imminent general election.

“Look, there’s Vic Halom,” said a ten-year-old to his dad.

“That’s not Vic Halom,” said the old feller, “that’s God.”

Innocently, Vic had asked another supporter headed to the Tuesday night match with Chelsea if he had a ticket. “It would take more than a bloody ticket to get me to vote for you,” he replied.

Now he’s back in Sunderland, after several years living and scouting in Bulgaria. He speaks entertainingly, uses the phrase “and that” almost as much as the late and lovely Bob Paisley, offers the remarkable revelation that Arsenal once offered to buy him in exchange for £20,000 and Charlie George.

“That’s the truth,” adds old Vic, 70 come October, though none is likely to doubt him. Sunderland turned down the deal.

He’d signed from Luton Town earlier in 1972-73, scored in the semi-final against the Gunners, reckoned he should have had another at Wembley after putting Leeds United goalkeeper David Harvey into the net. “Definitely no foul,” he insisted.

Wembley, he said was “the epitome of everything”, though latterly there hasn’t been much competition.

The current season’s barely mentioned, the 1992 general election not at all. NUM official and former Dawdon Colliery fitter Billy Etherington hewed out 30,000 votes for Labour, Vic chipping 25,000 fewer – but as probably they say in the City of Sunderland, you really can’t win them all.