"One of the best in the country": Rochester Sports Museum praised by Smith

The museum had been set up by the late sports enthusiast John Forbes and hosts an impressive array of sporting memorabilia.

Visiting Rochester and its sports museum for the first time, Smith inspected a number of objects on loan from the Australian Sports Museum.

And in what can only be labeled a full-circle moment, many of the pieces Smith and the national museum have loaned to Rochester have come from the Forbes himself.

“We get a lot of requests for borrowing objects, and when Rochester approached us about our puma collection, I looked in our database and sure enough it had come from John Forbes whose collection this is,” Smith said.

“John donated these to us as a legacy of Puma in the late 1980s.

“There were a couple of every single shoe Puma were selling at that time, racquets, helmets, all sorts of things.

“And so when the request came from Rochester, it was very easy for us to loan that back.

“It was completing the circle.”

Included in the new displays is a full Puma shoe range, as well as tennis tops, hats, racquets, along with additional objects such as German tennis star Boris Becker's shoes.

With various protocols in place when it comes to lending pieces to other exhibitions, Smith only had praise for the standard of Rochester's facility.

“When it comes to loaning objects, we do it very carefully,” Smith said. "You have to go through a process; we ask the team here to fill in various forms about security, conservation, cleaning, that sort of thing.

“But it was easy here, the quality of this space is perfect.

“That is the sign of the quality of this institution and the quality of the displays.

“We’re really proud to be associated with this group and this museum.”

Adding to the praise, Smith said Rochester has far and away one of the best facilities he had seen across the country.

“There is nothing like this in a regional town in Australia,” Smith said.

“The nearest I can think of is Bowral that has the Don Bradman museum, which has money and state support behind it.

“These guys in Rochester have pretty much done this all themselves.

“To do something on their own that is pretty much better than anything in the capital cities, is an amazing achievement.”

The Australian Sports Museum's objects will remain at Rochester long term on a five-year loan, which is renewable after that.

First opening in October, 2019, the museum has gone through a number of dormant periods due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

But after re-opening in October 2020, curator Laura Stedman and project manager Sam Watkins believe there has been a returning sense of a vigour for the museum from both the Rochester community and its visitors.

“It went absolutely amazing the first six months, then had to close because of the COVID-19,” Stedman said.

“After re-opening, and whether this is a reaction to COVID, or after John passed away earlier this year, likely a mixture of both, there has been a renewed invigoration,” Watkins said.

“We're seeing 20-30 people a day, which is big for any institution,” Stedman added.

“It really helps the town, people can pause in Rochester when travelling to Echuca or further on.

“But it's also turned out to be a destination upon itself.”