Replica Shirts
how to wear the shirt off their backs

Shirts are among the most collectable items of football memorabilia - but they are also some of the most expensive. Whereas programmes, cigarette cards, records, books and other popular collectors' items are mass produced, players shirts are one-offs. That's why you'd have to pay an absolute fortune for an England shirt from the 1966 World Cup Final or the Manchester United shirt from the 1958 PA Cup Final which featured a phoenix rising from the ashes badge to symbolise the club's resurgence after the terrible losses of the Munich air disaster.

So, a far cheaper way of satisfying a yearning for collecting old shirts is to delve into the Toffs catalogue of replica shirts. There are more than 356 to chose from and although they are not the genuine article, they're as close as most people are going to get. Toffs was formed in 1990 by Alan Finch and his wife Michelle in Newcastle, Business has been brisk and now they are market leaders in replica shirts. "'[he idea came in the early '86s when I was working in promotions for some big names in the music industry," says Alan, "I used to get T-shirts made up for promotional purposes for the likes of Elton John. At one point we made a retro Seventies football shirt and I thought it would be great if we could sell them because they were such good shirts. At that point you could only really buy boys' polyester football club shirts which didn't have the club badge on and were poor copies of the original. I thought we could make good replicas of the Arsenal Double-winning shirt, the Spurs Double shirt or the 1968 shirt Man United wore when they won the European Cup Final, but I didn't act on it.

"A few years later, I left the music business and moved up to the North-East and set about researching the idea. Being an Arsenal fan, I decided to make a mock-up of the shirts that I'd most want to buy - a 1971 Arsenal Cup Final shirt and the Double-winning shirt. I went to the club and presented the sample and they ordered 150 shirts - that started the ball rolling. The plan was to supply six clubs in the first 12 months, but we ended up supplying 12." The key to Toffs' success is ensuring the correct historical detail in terms of the design and fabric, this is achieved by acquiring the original shirts, often from the Christie's and Bonhams auctions where up to 100 shirts go on sale.

"Due to the fact that football is the fastest-growing area of collecting, we sometimes have to pay silly money to get the shirts," says Alan. "But you have to bear in mind that sometimes only 12 original shirts were made and getting hold of one of them is the only way to make an accurate copy. If we can't find an original shirt, we use reference books and a certain creative licence to reproduce them as best as possible.

"We've contacted old players to help us recreate shirts as we did for the Sunderland 1937 FA Cup-winning shirt. We needed help with the badge. There were only black and white photos, so we really didn't have much idea about the design. We contacted Ruth Carter and Johnny Mapson to help us, hut they both gave completely different descriptions. I used some artistic licence and designed the badge as best I could, but then I heard that the late Lenny Dunce's wife still had her husband's shirt from the 1 937 I final al, so we visited her and she showed us the shirt, which was kept in a box and still covered in mud. I almost died!

My badge was on a red background and the original one was on blue backing. I decided from that day on never to make a shirt unless I was absolutely sure I'd got the details 100 per cent correct," Toff's quest for authenticity means that Alan and Michelle have an impressive personal collection including Bobby Charlton's shirt from the 1966 World Cup Semi-Final, Jackie Milburns numberr 9 shirt from the 1952 FA Cup Final, Ray Daniel's Arsenal number 3 shirt from the same Final, a complete 1958 Manchester United kit, A Man City shirt From the 1956 FA Cup final, a Cardiff City shirt from the turn of the century, a Bradford Park Avenue shirt and, Alan's favourite, a 1950's Roy of the Rovers shirt.

So if you've got a players shirt, particularly if it's from a big match or one that's memorable for other reasons (the last time that shirt design was used or the last game at a stadium), it could be worth a lot more than you think. In which case, you don't want to suffer the experience as Alan Finch did. "When I was a kid, I used to hang around Highbury getting autographs, and one day I managed to blag Vic Groves Number 9 shirt. I treasured it. When I moved to the North Fast, I started playing for a local team so I asked my mum to send all my football gear up from Brighton. When it arrived noticed that the Vic Groves was missing. I called her and she told me that she'd given all my old shirts to a charity shop. I was devastated!"

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