The main reason that I've created this blog is mainly to leave a legacy for myself (and others, I hope!) as I'm now officially RETIRED from collection, so maybe it's time I shed some light into the fascinating world of jerseys lah...ok ok not really fully retired, more of semi-retirement...=)
Anyway, I think one of the main reasons for my collection is that it's like a sense of truly belonging to something lah, some sort of an affiliation (however remote) to something that you really believe in, I supposed. Well, at least that's my opinion lah. So far my collection extends to approx 280 pcs ranging from Club jerseys (Chelsea, AC Milan, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Glasgow Rangers) to Country jerseys (Germany, Spain, Italy, England, etc) to Hero jerseys (Nakata, etc). My proudest moment thus far in my short jersey collector's life (10 years) is owning a signed Frank Lampard shirt, hanging proudly on my bedroom wall. My biggest single collection is Chelsea shirts of which I have 61 in total and comprises from shirts beginning from season 90/91 until 06/07, including some GK kits.
Ok now on to some more interesting tidbits about collecting jerseys. Do you know that there is actually a difference between those worn actually by players themselves to those sold in retail shops? They are known as player shirts and replica. Player shirts are much more lighter and less sweat-absorbant, while replicas are mainly made out of polyester and thus, a lil bit more 'heavy'. There is also a difference between 'genuine' replica and 'replica' replica, and no prizes for guessing what 'replica' replica is...nowadays prices of such 'genuine' replicas are beginning to rise as demand is much more higher, no thanks to the rapid commercialisation of football in general. Major brands such as Adidas, Puma and Nike has a standard retail price of RM259.90, of which will be considerably cheaper once the season draws to a conclusion. For instance, WC 2006 jerseys were retailing as high as RM299.90 prior to the WC, but dropped to RM179 right after the tournament ended. That's a whopping 40% off in a space of 1 month! Thus it's really a niche market out there for jerseys...of course, player shirts are very very hard to find, as they are not made commercially, and can only be obtained via the players themselves, or via kit men of clubs. Some made their way to eBay (courtesy of players themselves selling, or maybe the kit men selling) but it's very hard to determine the fake shirts from the real shirts, as most people don't even know what/how the players looks/feels like! Thus, most collectors opt for the replicas, but of course, there are those who 'specialises' in the player shirts...but not me!
Another new phenomenon nowadays are player sized names & numberings ('NNs'). These are the words and numbers on the back of players' shirt, mainly for the ease of commentators to identify one player from another. Until recently, it's a known fact that NNs are differentiated similarly to jerseys (between player shirts/replicas) and there are player-sized NNs as compared to replica NNs. Player-sized NNs were not available commercially until fairly recently, with player-sized NNs slightly larger (as commentators need to be able to 'see' the player's name and number while commentating) as compared to replica NNs. This is also true for tournament patches that can be seen on the side of such football shirts currently.
Phew! What a crash course! of course, there's plenty more of where that came from, and maybe next time I will disclose more about my own collection that general tidbits...till the next time then!
