After that wooden badge he received at the age of seven, Joe Farrugia set out to collect as many things relating to Manchester United as possible.
His frequent visits to Manchester coupled with the many friends he made along the years led to the rapid expansion of his collection. It was becoming near impossible to find more space to fit things in his house, which had for years already been a worthy show case of memorabilia enjoyed by his closest friends and family.
This lack of space and the upcoming 50th Anniversary celebrations of the Manchester United Supporters’ Club in Malta (the oldest officially recognized in the world) spurned him on to actually fulfill his life long dream of showcasing his collection to the world.
His collection includes, apart from the obvious hundreds of mugs, scarves, badges, key chains, watches, stickers and flags, a sizeable number of rare and unique objects. His most prized items in the collection are the original shirts worn by the legendary George Best. The collection also boasts almost all the shirts worn by Manchester United along the years. The set occupies a large part of the museum.
The hundreds of match day programmes in the collection, go way back to the fifties, making some of them incredibly rare. A section of this collection is reserved to the special scale model replicas of the Champions League Trophy, the Premier League trophy, and a true scale replica of the FA Cup.
Joe Farrugia owns many personalized items given to him along the years by ex-players, managers, and also many of the current squad players. Club Captain Gary Neville, a close friend of Joe, has the honour of being the player with most items in the collection. He is closely followed by Ryan Giggs, another friend of Joe. Ryan Giggs, Manchester United’s longest serving player, is also Joe’s all time favourite player. Sir Alex Ferguson, a dear friend of Joe, has also contributed a number of personalized items to The Midani Collection.
Some items in the collection are also unique. Without any doubt, the largest bespoke item in the museum, is the Manchester United emblem hand carved out of local limestone.
His most prestigious item is the limited edition set of 3 watches when United won the treble in 1999 and the 1968 football with the original signatures of the Manchester United players who won the Champions Cup that year.
The Midani Collection is too large to describe and one must truly visit the museum in order to experience this truly unique collection of private Manchester United memorabilia.
