Things we collect .......

Spurs shirts going back to 1982

Growing up in a Tottenham family - daughter Cassie

Over time we all collect things that mean something to us. For me most of my collections relate to sport and football in particular. Since I was a young boy I always collected football programmes...especially for my side Tottenham. I literally had hundreds, most often from matches I had attended. At White Hart Lane there were stalls where you could buy programmes for games from all over the UK. Unfortunately my original collection came to an unexpected end. I used to keep them in boxes in our pram shed around the flats. Every so often I'd go down to have a look, admiring pictures of our players and triumphs from former years. When I was away at University in Leeds my mum decided to have a 'clear out' of the shed and gave all my old programmes to the young son of a friend of hers. Gone. All gone! Included amongst my losses.....European Cup Winners Cup Final 1963 v Athletico Madrid....FA Cup Final v Chelsea 1967....John White memorial Programme....League Cup Finals 1971 & 1973! I did half heartedly ask mum to get half of them back again but it never happened :( Fortunately, undeterred, I started to collect programmes again and have a fair number today including many from the NSL and Internationals here in Australia.
In a more general way I have also accumulated lots of sports clothing from sides I have either played for of coached in the past 25 years or so. Representative shirts and track suits for football associations figure highly. NSWCCC and NSWCIS, MCS and ISA all have their place in the pile.
Probably my biggest collecting obsession has been of football shirts ....those belonging to my club Tottenham in particular.

WHL1998

From the early 1980's replica shirts became available to supporters and quickly this became a massive industry especially as 'sponsors' were gradually adopted displaying their names on the shirts. One infamous 'sponsor' event happened at the 1987 Spurs v Coventry FA Cup final when only half the Tottenham shirts displayed the logo ....a PR disaster!

Pulling them all together

Having collected such club shirts for over 30 years I have amassed quite a few. The seemingly annual practice of changing the design or sponsor on a regular basis has meant that there are many variations on shirts. Of course the  idea of an 'away' jersey was quickly supplemented by the 'alternate" third shirt. Hence my collection includes variations on the spurs lily white but also purple, navy, brown and yellow shirts all bearing the Spurs cockeral. My prize shirts are the 1982 Centenary isssue and a long sleave genuine shirt that was acquired apparently from the Spurs dressing at White Hart Lane!
Holsten were Spurs longest serving sponsor over the years while Hewlett Packard, Investec, AIA, Aurasma, Autonomy, Mansion and Thomson's  all had their time. The current shirt maker is UnderArmour but previously Le Coq Sportif, Addidas, Puma, Hummel, Kappa and Admiral all provided kit.
Anyway I recently decided to pull all my Spurs shirts and stuff together to give it an airing and see just how much I had. Yes I'm a bit of a football anorak;)