My first post on my new site, my name is Phil, I plan to showcase my football shirt collection, get a bit nerdy about some of them, and ramble on in general about football shirts, or soccer jerseys if you prefer.
I bought my first replica shirt about age 11 from an advert in the back of Shoot/Goal magazine in around ‘76/77. An Admiral NASL California Surf shirt. I couldn’t afford any British team shirts but the American ones were cheaper.
At the time I didn’t live in the uk and didn’t really have a team, but I knew loved football shirts.
My next shirt purchased was a Forest 79/80 shirt as I needed a red shirt for my house colours at boarding school in Sussex.
I bought a Holland adidas shirt in 1980 as I lived in the country at the time.
I wish I still had all of those, but sadly long gone now.
In around 1978 we had a special visitor to school to talk in assembly, a goalkeeper called Eric Steele, he played for Brighton and Hove Albion. The Seagulls were flying high at the time, on the brink of promotion to the top flight, Division One, I decided that Brighton had to be my team, and I’ve supported them ever since.
Despite watching the Albion since 1979 I didn’t buy my first Brighton shirt till 1994, made by Admiral shirt. Since then I’ve amassed a collection of around 350 Brighton shirts, mostly matchworn examples. My oldest, so far, is a 1977 home match shirt, I have every Brighton home shirt since then, all but 2 being match shirts. The rest of the collection includes always, thirds, fourths, goalies, specials and prototypes.
In addition I have around 300 shirts of other teams ranging from Sussex non league sides to teams and countries from all over the world.
The shirts shown on this site are from my personal collection and are not for sale.