EPL Talk » Holland

Website Interview: Classic Football Shirts

Paul Bestall — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 11:41:25 +0000

If, like me, you’re always looking around the Internet for those hard to find football shirts from your past, frustrated as someone gazumps on you on e-bay for the classic 1987 Tottenham away kit with 3 seconds to go, then there has to be only one website for you to visit: www.classicfootballshirts.co.uk

To say it’s extensive doesn’t do it justice, this is a site that has kits from the 1970’s up to the 2004-2005 season, all originals, no fakes and no re-issues. It’s a football fans dream, a real goldmine of memories for people like me who were placed as the football boom really returned in the late 1980’s in the UK. The 1980’s were when the kits got trendier, sponsors names started appearing all over the place and away and third kits began to appear for the first time.

It also saw the boom period for when people actually wanted to buy replica kits, a strange concept to us these days that football merchandise at the beginning of the decade seemed to consist of bland scarfs, hats, rosettes and gloves in your teams colours.Between 1987 and 1990, the football shirt fashion came from out of nowhere, now its seen as normal.

I just love browsing the site, clicking here and there on link after link after link, each one reminding me of certain moments of my footballing life, like a polyester time capsule, bursting with memories about the girls I kissed at the time, the music I was listening to, the great players and the world around me. So, I thought I’d ask the Doug, one the guys behind this wonderful website a few questions:

Paul : First of all, thanks for taking the time to talk about the website with me, I really appreciate it. So, to anyone out there who doesn’t know about you, what can you tell us about www.classicfootballshirts.co.uk?

Doug : We are essentially an online shop which sells original and official replica shirts for a wide selection of clubs and national teams from all around the world, from the late 1970’s through to the 2000’s. For the big teams, we stock quite large quantities of home, away and third shirts from many different seasons in a range of sizes. But we try to offer something for everyone from Manchester United to Accrington Stanley, AC Milan to Bari, Boca Juniors to Chicago Fire, England to the USA.

Paul : I’m amazed at some of the kits you’ve got on the site, what gave you the idea to start?

Doug : The two directors of the site were both students when the idea came about and to make ends meet, realised there was money to be made in original, vintage football shirts. The company has grown from this very small base to a relatively large online store stocking close to 10,000 shirts!

Paul : I’m a bit of a football shirt collector, with probably about 80 to 100 myself, but what are the site’s top sellers?

Doug : The most popular shirts are the Holland home shirt from their famous triumph at Euro 88, the Manchester United Newton Heath design away kit from 1992-1994, Liverpool shirts from the time of their last league title, the Arsenal kit worn on that glorious night at Anfield in 1989, the England home shirt from Spain 82 and generally anything that has a great design, sparks memories of great victories or shirts that are very obscure.

Paul : How do price the kits that you sell on the site?

Doug : The shirts are priced first and foremost on the rarity. If it will take us a year to source another one then we have to charge a price for it that takes that into consideration. After that, it goes down to size and condition. Shirts have to be suitable for an adult to fit into really and the most popular sizes are M, L and XL. We try to stock shirts in excellent condition, this means that they may have been worn in the time between when they were first purchased in the shop in whatever year and when they arrive with us, but don’t really show any real signs of this and are great examples for their age.

Paul : Do you just sell replica kits?

Doug : We also sell shirts that have been worn by players. These bear a number of different features that set them apart from the replica kits that you could buy in the shop. We have people who have had the shirt thrown to them in the crowd, handed to them at the training ground or passed on from a family friend etc, selling these type of shirts to us. In the past we’ve had some great items worn by quite a few legendary players.

Paul : So what are your personal favourites and what are the fashion disasters?

Doug : A favourite of mine are the tiger skin pattern design shirts worn by Hull City between 1992 and 1995, but they are only for the brave to wear them really! All of the Italian club and national kits from the late 80’s and early 90’s have a great style and class to them. As for a design that’s pretty shocking, look no further than the infamous grey Manchester United away shirt from the 1995-96 season. Ferguson blamed the shirt for United trailing 3-0 at half time against Southampton at the Dell and they were never seen again!!

Well Doug, thank you very much for spending some time talking about your fantastic website with me and the readers of epltalk.com. All the best for the future and if I can recommend one website out there for fans, collectors or just curious fans who want to get a feel about how kits have moved on in the last 30 years, www.classicfootballshirts.co.uk certainly ticks all the boxes.

Tottenham Hotspur Signs Roman Pavlyuchenko For £14 Million

The Gaffer — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 02:17:39 +0000

Tottenham Hotspur has announced that the club has reached an agreement with Spartak Moscow to sign Russian striker Roman Pavlyuchenko for a transfer fee believed to be £14 million.

The star striker who made a huge impression in Euro 2008 won’t be ready to play against Chelsea in the London derby today. His first match wearing a Spurs shirt will likely be the home game against Aston Villa on Monday, September 15.

While at Spartak Moscow, Pavlyuchenko scored 77 goals in 147 appearances, and has played 23 times for Russia scoring nine goals for his national side.

For many, Pavlyuchenko rose to prominence with his impressive displays at Euro 2008 including the goal he scored against Holland (see video clip below) and his thunderbolt shots from distance.

The 26-year old Pavlyuchenko joins a Spurs side alongside fellow strikers Dimitar Berbatov and Darren Bent.

To me, this is another massive signing by Spurs this summer after signing David Bentley, Giovanni Dos Santos and Luka Modric. The Russian striker was such a breath of fresh air this summer. He’s a born finisher who will take time to adapt to the English game. But in Pavlyuchenko, Spurs has signed one of the most promising players in Europe. Let’s hope he dazzles the Premier League viewers around the world.

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Holland 1-3 Russia – Arshavin On Top Of The World

The Gaffer — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 01:19:10 +0000

Watching Russia beat Holland 3-1 tonight in Basel to qualify for the semi-finals of Euro 2008, we may have seen the future champions of Europe. Their performance, at times, was simply breathtaking.

Over the entire 120 minutes, the best team deservedly won the match. Holland had plenty of chances to score but they were, for once, wasteful in front of the net. The Netherlands was also extremely lethargic in this game especially in midfield where it often seemed like they had forgotten to play their one-touch football which had been so awe-inspiring to watch throughout the tournament thus far.

What impressed me most about Russia was their shooting accuracy. Time after time, Dutch keeper Edwin van der Sar kept Holland in the game after making fingertip saves to prevent Russia from scoring. It wasn’t just Russia’s shooting accuracy but the speed and placement of their shots was simply stunning. The Russians kept on pinging the shots in at van der Sar.

There were so many highlights for the Russians. Dmitri Torbinski’s goal for Russia to make it 2-1 was simply sublime. Andrei Arshavin controlled the midfield and was rewarded for his hard work with a goal. Roman Pavlyuchenko continued to torment Holland and he too got a goal for Russia. While there was little between both teams in the first half, from the second half onwards Russia began to take control and looked by far the better side. Russia coach Guus Hiddink is a bloody genius.

If you haven’t noticed, a pattern is beginning to emerge in Euro 2008. So far, every team that’s qualified for the semi-finals thus far has lost one of their matches in the opening round of the European Championships. Sometimes you have to taste defeat to get the kick up the backside you need to go on to be victorious. The shame of it for Holland was that their first loss of the tournament came in a game where defeat sent them out of the tournament and heading home.

The Pitfalls Of Watching Soccer On Satellite TV

The Gaffer — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 00:08:20 +0000

Sometimes readers ask me why I don’t have DirecTV or DISH Network. One of the main reasons why was on display today, and it’s definitely one of the pitfalls of watching soccer on satellite television.The culprit is the weather in South Florida. During the summer here, you can almost guarantee that by 2pm that the major thunderstorms will roll in and the rain comes pouring down. When that happens, you lose the satellite signal and you have to wait for the storm to pass before the TV programming returns. Sometimes that can be 20 minutes or more.

When your satellite signal is at the mercy of the weather, there’s no telling when it’ll ruin your soccer watching experience. This is exactly what happened today. Watching the Russia against Holland quarter-final in a local pub, the DirecTV signal was lost two to three times during the match, leaving us with blank screens for several minutes during the match.

The worst part of this is that we missed a key moment in the match near the end of the 90 minutes. When we frustratingly lost the DirecTV signal around the 80th minute mark, several of the pub patrons pulled out their Blackberry’s to give us updates on the game as we waited for the ABC signal to return. One of the customers yelped that Ruud van Nistelrooy just scored an equalizer. It’s one thing to see the goal in person, but when you hear someone blurt it out after reading it on a Blackberry, it pissed me off because I wasn’t able to see it on TV.

Hurricane season in Florida is from June 1st to November 30. So for six months out of the year, there’s no guarantee that you’ll be able to watch your soccer matches when you want to.

Cable is definitely the better option but Setanta Sports isn’t available on Comcast. Unless a major announcement will be made this summer, I may sign up for Setanta Broadband instead.

Is Fan Segregation At Football Matches A Good Thing?

The Gaffer — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 16:36:38 +0000

One of the pleasures of going to see a live match in England and continental Europe these days is the lack of fan segregation.

After leaving Wales in 1984 and returning to England in 2006 to attend a professional match again, I was shocked by how fans were allowed to mingle together in the streets outside the grounds. Inside the Premier League stadiums, the away fans were put in their corner surrounded by stewards. But before and after the games, the fans from both teams could be seen standing and walking next to each other with no aggro or insults traded.

Such is the difference between English football in 1984 and 2006. Not having been to a top tier professional match in England for so long I was stunned by how much things had changed.

I experienced the same thing at the Holland against Italy match at Euro 2008. While I didn’t expect the supporters to be herded into the different stands as was common in the late 70s and early 80s, I was surprised by how there was little to no segregation in the Wankdorf Stadium in Berne. Sure, there was the Italian end and the Dutch end both at opposite sides of the ground where the official supporters club stood. But throughout the remainder of the stadium Dutch fans sat next to Italian fans and neutrals.

This is definitely the modern day football experience where hooliganism is becoming extremely rare except for small clashes. Fans of all ages and races sitting together in stands without trying to attack each other.

All of this happens though with Big Brother playing a large part behind the scenes. In the build up to the Holland against Italy match, there were several helicopters circling around the ground conceivably looking for trouble or possible terrorism. There are also lots of security cameras in key locations watching for trouble. And there’s still quite a big police presence lurking from a distance and waiting to pounce if any trouble kicks off.

Watching the Turkey against Croatia match, it was hard not to notice the large presence of stewards behind each goal. Their presence seemed excessive especially the three rows of stewards standing in front of the Croatia end. There was a noticeably smaller presence in front of the Turkey end. Before and after the match there were some isolated clashes between fans, but looking at the large numbers of Turkish and Croats throughout the other parts of the stadium, everything seemed to be pretty calm, thankfully.

While it’s refreshing to see fans from both sides — whether it’s in the Premier League or Euro 2008 — attend a football match without the worry of violence happening, there is a little part of me that misses the tension and the abusive chants between opposing sets of fans. Now the atmosphere feels more like a company picnic party. Everyone’s there to have a good time but it’s all so sedate.

Please share your thoughts by clicking the comments link below.