Football kits and fashion have always gone hand in hand though in the last 15 to 20 years, there has been an explosion of interest globally in vintage football shirts and this phenomena will continue to grow exponentially.
Cult Kits is one of the organizations who, with the hard work and passion of a few dedicated individuals, have firmly positioned themselves as one of the market leaders in the vintage football shirt business.
Want to clear your cupboard and get rid of some ‘old’ football shirts?
Have a good look as one of the shirts you want to discard could be worth a lot of money now in the ever growing sports collectable market.
What would make an elusive Hong Kong football kit?
Possibly an Ernest Borel FC kit from the early nineties or an original Seiko kit from the 1970s.
These elusive kits are out there somewhere and if you have one, it could be worth a lot of money in the new football shirt economy which is sweeping the world.
Cult Kits are one of the world’s leading football shirt selling / buying organizations and are literally a ‘cult’ name around the world for highlighting ‘cult’ original, rare and authentic football shirts.
A passion for football memorabilia brought the team members of Cult kits together and now it is a global business and of course, it continues to grow, evolve and expand further.
Cult Kits in Hong Kong
Robert Kocur and David Furzer-Jones of Cult Kits were in Hong Kong for the first time to meet the Hong Kong football shirt loving community and explore HK’s kit scene to hopefully find a few gems of their own.
Any trip aboard is an experience and of course both Robert and David experienced the full heat and humidity of Hong Kong and explored all the quirky football memorabilia shops that Hong Kong has hidden away.
In an exclusive interview, both Robert and David sat down and chatted at Coffeelin Fortress Hill about the origins of Cult Kits, how the organization evolved and how a shared passion for football shirts brought them together.
The Origins of Cult Kits
David began by talking about the origins and how simple ideas eventually grew into something bigger.
“Josh Warwick, who is one of our founding partners, had a blog on VOX. He was a journalist by trade and I am a designer by trade and we both worked in London at the time. At the time, there was nothing really online that covered, football culture, as a whole which encompassed fashion and music releases.
There was probably only one and it’s still probably the biggest, which is SoccerBible, which we weren’t that aware of though they were still in their infancy really and they had a pretty big following almost straight away.
Josh and I used to buy each other football shirts every Christmas, even as adults. We would basically say to each other ‘This year is a club shirt’ so each shirt would be a surprise and that year Josh was like, ‘When he gave me my latest shirt; I got this kit from this company called Cult Kits which has loads of amazing shirts.’ The Foundations were laid.
Expansion
David went onto talk about how simplistic the original site was:
“The initial site was really primitive and the search function was terrible but it didn’t really matter as we ended up following Cult Kits on Instagram as well. We thought let’s see if we can meet him (Robert Kocur) and see if he wants us to sell some shirts and we will take no commissions. It’s just that we just have a love of connecting readers who want to buy and love football shirts.
Robert recalled meeting around Old Street station in London:
“The first time we met I was in London and I was at work and I was like – ‘Really sorry, I can I can meet you for like 20 minutes around Old Street!’
David continued the story and said this brief meeting was the spark from which Cult Kits could gradually grow to the next level.
“That was it really! It went from I think 50 shirts and the search function was terrible. The site’s usability was pretty bad but it didn’t matter because we realized that people were slowly hearing about it and were starting to buy. Cult Kits went from 150 shirts to 200 shirts to as many as we could list!”
In a stroke of marketing and business development genius, the market could drive itself as rare and vintage football shirts are so popular and collectibles that consumers would be willing to search and research for. Potential customers would spend hours to find their elusive ‘treasure’ in the form of a football shirt which they could be emotionally tied too or which could elicit certain memories.
Kocur said that people did not seem to mind that they had to really dig deep and find the shirt they were looking for.
“People did like the fact they had to like work for it (to find a shirt) and work to find what they wanted. I mean, it wasn’t an easy site to navigate at first.”
David said that 2018 was the year that saw exponential growth for Cult Kits.
“Within a year or two years, we designed a slow website and the developers built a site with more a functional search and it just grew out of that really and 2018 is where we kind saw a hockey stick like growth and we saw a boost in our own brand and becoming known as one of the biggest players for football shirts and there is no real monopoly over this area.”
Robert said there are many individuals and other platforms that do similar though it takes time and dedication to evolve.
“There’s lots of individual sellers doing eBay, but it’s really hard work to grow a business because everything’s individually done and it takes a lot of time to list stuff and do the research to make things authentic. You realize a lot of these individual sites don’t really get much bigger so they get to a certain size and they can’t really get to that next level where content becomes someone’s passion and income.”
David said reinforced the time and dedication required to make a living from this industry.
“Selling individually? That’s fine, it gives them a good living and I would definitely do it now. You have the knowledge and ultimately the passion for it but like Rob said, it is very difficult and the attention to detail that goes in and we have a relatively small team compared to one of the major players.”
David stressed that it takes high levels of dedication as each authentic shirt needs to be properly looked after and repackaged for a new potential home.
“We have around nine employees altogether and we’re still growing and over half of the company is pretty much focused on product; shirts are double checked for authenticity, washed and repaired if needed. All of those processes go on even before a shirt touches the website and therefore if there are any doubts whatsoever over a shirt, it just doesn’t get listed. There are some incredible fakes!
Cult Kits have got bags and bags of fake shirts, like royal mail sacks, and we really want to do some sort of up-cycling like turning the fake shirts into something else!”
The level of realism in the fake shirts is incredible:
“Some of the fakes are shocking and it is difficult to tell, like obviously, we’re seeing them every day so we can spot the stitching and the printing. The newer ones are a little bit easier because they’ve got serial numbers.”
Like all budding entrepreneurs, David used to moonlight and work in his spare time especially in the early days of the business.
“In my old job, I used to book out meeting rooms and do as many uploads as I could and from there, the site just grew and grew! It became and I guess it has always been, a bit of a drug really, and it was not about making a lot of money, it was more about seeing a shirt go to a home.”
Some of the shirts are so unique that ‘selling’ the top to another party could be an emotional process.
“Regardless if it is second hand or has a brand new tag, you are giving the shirts a new home and sometimes you do find it difficult to let go and if it is sold immediately; sometimes it is hard to let the shirt go but it is about growing bigger and bigger and it is great to seeing people getting excited about buying vintage shirts!”
With football teams now churning out shirts left, right and center, does not mean a form of over-saturation.
“We still get excited about the new shirt releases, it doesn’t knock on some negative energy to ruin brand new releases, it’s quite the opposite. It is great to see people still wanting to buy the shirts as actually, you want to see what they (fans and clubs) are going to do.”
Football Fashion and Street Cred
Football fashion is diversifying and both David and Robert stress that football fashion has changed with a lot more street cred and both say that World Cup USA in 1994 was the springboard for football to gradually branch out and presently, we see football and fashion fully intertwined with each other.
“And what will happen? I mean, as you probably are aware of the collections that they’re releasing now. Brands are going on with the lifestyle area, because of the fashion spin-offs, which is very similar to what they were doing in the 90s, which was influenced by American culture. The new trends were off the back of World Cup USA 94 so all kinds of extra jackets and bomber jackets that fans saw released from the 90s? They all came off the back of USA 1994 and being aware of American sports and all merchandising that was associated with it, which is this like foundation of the English Premier League.”
Hong Kong Football Shirts and Nicky Butt
David and Robert, since they were in Hong Kong, were asked about their knowledge of Hong Kong kits and both said they were familiar with perennial HK favorites and fallen giants, South China.
“We knew about South China and their old shirts and some of them are really nice and I heard the peak of Hong Kong football was a few decades ago!”
Both were delighted to learn that former Manchester United and Newcastle midfielder, Nicky Butt, played for South China as having a South China shirt with the former England players name on the back, would of course be a valuable find.
Rare And Mysterious Kits
There are even some kits so rare that even Cult Kits and their global network still have trouble locating them. One such example is the Fiorentina kit emblazoned with the Mario Logo. Cult Kit did come across one once and placed it up for auction and it caused pandemonium.
According to David, the shirt might even be a myth (though there are of course plenty of remakes)
“The Fiorentina Nintendo shirt has the logo with Mario on the front though there is no proof that Fiorentina actually had that shirt.”
Robert added that the Mario might have been added on later though this mysterious shirt remains elusive.
“We think it might actually have been bootleg and whoever was selling the shirts then added the Mario on. Occasionally the shirt pops up especially from Mexico and occasionally, we find these Nintendo Fiorentina shirts with the Super Mario logo on it though the originals are rare.”
In terms of dream kit that both Robert and David would like to have or own, the answers were interesting and ultimately is there anyone who can help them out in their quest to find their dream kit.
David would love a match worn 1995 Manchester United Black shirt with Cantona emblazoned on the back.
“For me (David) it would have to be a Manchester United Black 1995 Cantona shirt! I have one but if I can have a player issue one or a match worn one from that season of Cantona wearing it then that one is it. They are out there but I am pretty sure they are all locked away! I am pretty sure if I was meeting someone today who has one or if someone manages to find one then I would say, just name your price!”
Robert’s favourite or hidden gem is the Inter Milan 1998 Uefa Cup final shirt which Ronaldo (Brazil) wore.
“For me, it is the Inter Milan kit which they wore in the UEFA Cup final in 1998. The gray, black and yellow one”
Football shirts are one of the world’s new global economies and markets. All diehard football fans have a couple of old school football shirts lying around and they could be worth a fortune.
