FOOTBALL fever seems to be in the air at the moment and the Fusiliers' Museum Development Project, as usual, refuses to be left behind.

Work on the museum collection is beginning to take place and some new objects have been discovered at the back of the museum store.

An exciting new find is a 1949 regimental football kit. There is no record of it in the museum's register and the recently retired custodian Tony Sprason has never seen it before.

The museum's assistant development office Anna Bowman has photographed it for inclusion with this article and said: "We know very little about the kit and it seems amazing that it has turned up when there is a lot of excitement about football and it's a World Cup year.

"If any of the Bury Times readers know anything about it we would love to hear from them. It has the number 7/4 marked on the top and RS/27 on the shorts."

The recently discovered kit is going on loan over the summer to a new fashion gallery at Snibston Museum in Leicestershire, the development of which was funded by an HLF grant. The show is called The Beautiful Game and will display the kit alongside other famous strips in state-of-the-art conditions. But the new find will be back to take its rightful place in the Fusiliers' Museum when it opens in the Arts and Crafts Centre in 2008.

The Lancashire Fusiliers were involved in the famous 1914 "no man's land" football game during the First world War and were said to be 3-2 up before the game was called off! These few words describe the recollections of one player at the time: "The Germans started it, coming out of their trenches and walking over to us. Nobody decided for us we just climbed over our parapet and went over to them, we thought nobody would shoot at us if we all mingled together."