After speaking to several players on Sunday and over the course of the last few weeks, I have decided we will change our colours from jade to green so that we can buy a set of these Nike shirts.
(Nike do not do jade, but 'everybody' wants Nike shirts).
ORC Sports (the League's sponsors) are going to be at the League meeting on Thursday night, so I can therefore order the shirts then...as long as Steve Cokell says he definitely wants to sponsor them ?
The link above is actually ORC Sports' website (they are known online as 'Just Team Sports'), so the shirts are therefore £14.00 each...not including numbering and having the club badge and sponsor's name printed on them. I do not know how much that costs at the moment but we can probably guess at an additional £100. We will also need a goalkeeper's top, so Jacko will have to let me know before Thursday night which Nike keeper's top he wants. (Please use that 'Just Team Sports' website to browse through).
We will need to get shirts numbered 2-12, then 14-18. so that's 17 in total. (I always get an additional shirt with new kits just in case we lose one).
These will all be XL size. However, Lee King wants me to order an S size for him to pay for himself, keep and bring to every match and I think Ben also wants a smaller size. We can number Lee's S-size shirt (which I think will be too small by the way !) as 19 and any other shirts that players want to pay for and keep themselves as No.20 and so on. We will not be printing player's names on the back though !
If players want to order their own shirts to pay for and keep themselves, they must let me know before Thursday night. If John is reading this, sorry I'm not having a dig mate, just being realistic ! You will need to get in touch before Thursday if an XL size is no good for you.
In total, we are probably looking at around £350-400 for the shirts for the club including printing. (That includes a keeper's top, but not any additional shirts ordered).
Players who want to order their own shirt will probably have to pay about £20.00 each (which includes a share of the printing costs).
As for shorts & socks, we will have to continue using what we have got for the time being.
Once the club can afford to pay for a new set of socks, we will get whatever make are the stretchiest and most comfortable...and in green, not black ! I don't want us clashing with Referees.
I know that Danny Hagan (and others) want us to get a set of green shorts, but I don't agree.
I think we should stick with plain black shorts so that players can wear whatever brand and style they want.
So there you have it.
I am out filming Ebbsfleet tonight, so I won't be able to reply on here until tomorrow, but I need as much feedback as possible in the meantime.
Obviously Steve needs to give the go-ahead first as to whether his company can afford up to £400. We may be able to get them cheaper, but I won't know until Thursday night.
Just for the record, I couldn't care less what make the new kit is made by as long as it isn't the same as our current kit as that is ridiculously heavy when wet and uncomfortable to play in with the sweat.
Im not buying into the 500 quid talk, I know for a fact you can pick kit up cheaper. crouch end vamps are skint and always have an option for kit that isn't sky high.
I will talk to the bloke who sorts our kit out at the vamps
O.K., I'll try and give ORC Sports a phone later today and see if they do Puma kit as that is the nearest to jade. If they do, I'll ask them to bring a sample shirt of that and a Nike shirt along to the League Meeting tomorrow night so that I can compare both with our current Prostar shirts.
For me to get a quote, I will need Steve Cokell to e-mail me his company logo and let me know if he wants it printed in one colour (e.g. white) or more.
Two or three-colour printing is always a lot more expensive.
Hagan...if you could find out today where Vamps get their kit from and how much they pay per shirt including printing per shirt, then that will be useful.
When ORC Sports were known as Briggs (Enfield & Wood Green), they traditionally did kit deals of up to 25% off at these Pre-Season League Meetings.
Why not roll out some of those 70's kits you put photos up of? I think they were made by Crapline or Sh1tstar but at least they had a 'unique' look.
ORC Sports were not at the League Meeting last night for some reason, so I wasn't able to see any samples of Puma (or whatever) shirts, although I am told that Puma shirts are 'lightweight' like the Nike ones, so I would very much prefer to go for that 'Team Green' one.
However, we still need to try and find somewhere where we can get a set of these shirts for less than £250.00, as that is the maximum that Steve can afford to sponsor. That includes printing costs.
Also the problem of several players wanting different sized shirts. How do we get round that if they cannot afford to buy their own to keep...and pay in advance for it ?
I think there is still a lot to sort out first before we get anywhere on this.
I had a few players ask me at today's match whether there is any progress on us getting this new kit yet, but I simply haven't got time to sort anything out at the moment. I am just too busy with work until the end of October.
I really need other Management Committee members to help, but I think they are even busier...or on holiday.
As far as I am concerned, the Puma Team Green shirt is a definite. What needs to be done is 'somebody' has to contact various kit companies who sell/distribute those shirts and get quotes for a set of 16 of them in one particular size (and all long-sleeved). They somehow have to find out whether a Large size is too small for the majority of our players or an Extra Large size (XL) is too big for the majority of our players.
They will also have to ask Jacko what Goalkeepers' Top he wants (and what size), and they will have to find out which of our players want to pay for their own shirt to keep (in a certain size to fit them). For example, Lee King says he wants a Small size shirt, but that may be too small and he may need a Medium. The only way of finding out is for him to try one on...but where ?!
Once that has been done, 'somebody' then needs to give the kit distributors our club badge & Steve Cokell's plumbing company's logo and also choose the style and colour of numbering for the shirts. (It must be white numbers by the way, not black, as black does not show up very well on video). The problem is Steve is now on holiday for two weeks.
Once all that has been done and quotes have been obtained from each distributor, Steve will need to give the go-ahead as to whether he can afford it, and the money for certain players to buy additional shirts (numbered from 19 onwards) for them to keep themselves will also have to be paid before those extra shirts are actually ordered.
If Steve cannot afford it, we do apparently have other interested sponsors, but 'somebody' will have to chase them up and get their logo and go-ahead for one of the quotes obtained.
So...any volunteers ?
I am happy to pick this up depending on when we expect the new kit to be available. I am pretty busy on and off for the next couple of weeks but should be able to at least start on some enquiries.
I have spent the last hour looking around. I have found 4-5 sites that have similar pricing...
We can get a full set of shirts with Badge, Sponsor, and 1 of 6 different numbering styles for a cost of £325.
I have emailed all these sites asking if they would consider some sort of discount for a bit of advertising on the website or video highlights.
For individual orders you are looking at £20.
The sizing chart is interesting and we would have to take that off line along with deciding what style of numbering we want.
I will continue to look over the week and hopefully get some responses to emails sent.
Yes the money is in the club account and not funding my holiday.
We need to pay for Hazelwood ant training but we will be OK to pay towards the kit provided everyone keeps up to date with their subs and we get good turnouts at training.
Not sure what the latest is with the new kit idea, but have a read of Charles Sale's column in the Daily Mail today. Scroll down to the bottom under the heading 'Tevez Joins Nike Club' and it says...
'The curse of Nike during September has seen the numbers peel off their England rugby World Cup shirts, Wayne Rooney slip over and miss a penalty in his first competitive match wearing the new T90 Laser boots and Barcelona players including Lionel Messi complain about their kit absorbing too much sweat and making the shirts heavy.'
So let's go for that Puma Team Green (Jade) then ?