The hard part of ordering club kit is not choosing a shirt. It is that thirty-eight people have to agree a design, supply an accurate size and pay for it, and you have to extract all three from them before a deadline most of them do not know exists. The supplier side of the job is straightforward. The club side is where orders go wrong.
This is the sequence that works, written for whoever is holding the clipboard.
Before you ask anyone for a quote
A supplier can only quote what you describe. Turn up with these eight settled and the first quote you get will be close to the final one.
- The garment list. Not "kit" — playing shirts, shorts, socks, training tops, mid-layers, coats, bags, and how many of each.
- Squad numbers, in both senses. How many players, and whether shirts are numbered, and whether a player keeps a number between seasons.
- Whether this is a one-off or a range you will reorder. Kit you expect to top up for three seasons should be chosen differently from kit for a single tour.
- Artwork, in the right format. A vector file — .ai, .eps or a vector PDF — is what a decorator needs. A logo copied off the club website is low resolution and will have to be redrawn, which costs time you would rather spend elsewhere.
- Sponsors, and permission for them. Every sponsor logo needs the same vector treatment, and someone at the sponsor has to confirm you are using the current version. Old logos get printed more often than you would think.
- Who pays. Club funds, players, sponsors, or a split. This determines whether you need individual payment collection, which changes your timeline more than anything else on this list.
- A budget per player. Even a rough one. It lets a supplier steer you to the right garment tier instead of quoting blind.
- The date it is genuinely needed. Not "before the season". A specific fixture, tour, presentation night or photo day. Real dates get planned around; vague ones do not.
What a proper quote contains
A one-line total is not a quote. Ask for it broken out, and check that these are all visible:
- Each garment listed by make and specification, not just "shirt".
- Decoration itemised by position and method, so you can see what a crest costs versus a sponsor versus a number.
- Setup, origination or digitising charges shown separately, so you know what repeats on a reorder and what does not.
- Names and numbers priced per garment.
- VAT position. Children's sizes are zero-rated in the UK and adult sizes are not, so a junior and senior order will not price consistently per garment.
- Delivery, and whether it is one drop or several.
- What a mid-season top-up would involve, and what it would cost.
That last point separates a supplier who wants one order from one who expects to still be supplying you in three years.
Artwork: where clubs quietly lose a fortnight
Suppliers get blamed for delays that are almost always committee delays. The proof goes out on a Tuesday, sits in an inbox while three people are asked their opinion, comes back with a change, and the cycle starts again. Two rounds of that is a fortnight gone before anything has been made.
Fix it with structure. Name one person who approves artwork and one deputy who can approve in their absence. Get the committee's opinions before the proof is requested, not after it arrives. When the proof comes back, check it properly — club name spelling, sponsor spelling, the year, the colours against a physical reference rather than a screen — then approve it and treat the design as closed. Reopening artwork after sign-off is the most reliable way to miss a first fixture.
Sizes and money, collected once
Printed kit cannot be returned, exchanged or resold. That is the whole reason this stage matters, and it is why guessing sizes from an old shirt is a false economy. Get physical sample garments in front of the squad at a training session and have every player try them on, because branded sizing varies enormously between manufacturers and no size chart survives contact with a real under-14s squad.
Then collect sizes and money in the same transaction. A form that takes a size without taking payment guarantees you a fortnight of chasing. Set a single deadline, say plainly that anyone who misses it waits for the next order, and hold that line once.
The day the boxes arrive
Open and check the same day, before anything is handed out:
- Count garments against the order, by size, not by eye.
- Check the crest, club name and sponsors on one garment of each type before you unpack the lot.
- Check names and numbers against your list.
- Photograph anything that looks wrong and raise it immediately. Problems reported the same week get resolved. Problems reported in October do not.
Then bag kit by player if it is not already bagged that way, and keep the size list somewhere that is not your personal email account.
If you have just inherited the job
Find four things before you do anything else: the artwork files, the last order confirmation, the squad size list, and the name of whoever the club dealt with last time. Those four will save you weeks. If the artwork has been lost, which happens more often than clubs admit, get it redrawn properly once and store it where the next secretary can find it.
Custom team kit is quoted and made to order rather than bought off the shelf, so the honest starting point is a conversation. Send the garment list, the squad numbers, your artwork and the date you actually need it and we will come back with a proper itemised quote: request a custom kit quote. If you would rather work through the options first, get in touch. Stock items that do not need branding, like kit bags, can be sorted separately and quickly.