[1] France was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2012 New Year Honours for services to football in the United Kingdom and Europe.
Some involved collaborations with David Prentice,[5][6][7][8] Becky Tallentire,[9] Barry Hewitt[10] and cartoonist Peter King,[11][12][13][14][15] while others embraced inputs from a cross-section of Everton enthusiasts.
Conceived by Dr France after consultation with baseball's counterpart in Cooperstown, New York, it pays tribute to the men who have contributed to Everton's history.
In 1996 he recruited an independent panel of players, journalists, shareholders and season-ticket holders to painstakingly assess the qualifications of the 800 or so candidates and select the initial 75 members.
[19] The 2017 additions of John Bailey, Kevin Campbell, Nigel Martyn, Ian Snodin and Pat van den Hauwe increased the membership to 131.
[21] Subsequently, Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern Munich have established similar organisations and along with Everton are members of the European Former Players' Association.
[22] Employing a network of dealers, Dr France took over 20 years to assemble some of football's rarest items dating back to the club's pioneering days in Stanley Park.
Equally as important, the items should be displayed physically in Liverpool and all printed materials digitised and incorporated into a website to facilitate worldwide access.
At the formal launch the Everlution exhibition in late 2009, Andy Burnham, the UK Health Minister, said: "Thanks to David France the story of the heart and soul of our club has been brought together.
Everton chairman Bill Kenwright said: ‘On behalf of all Evertonians, I would like to express our collective gratitude to David France for his foresight in acquiring these rarities and for his patience during the fund-raising period.’[34] Sir Philip Carter added: ‘There are so many sacred items spanning the 131 years from our days at Stanley Park.
It has no match anywhere.’[38] Because there had been no recognition at Goodison or Anfield of the men who started and shaped football on Merseyside, Dr. France commissioned artist Wasan Suttikasem to produce six oil paintings depicting the key figures from the early days of Everton and Liverpool.