The Joy of Charity Shops

By Dominik Robbins Up until a few years ago the thought of the charity shop for myself conjured up images of old people selling old, tatty and smelly clothes but as many have found out they are a more professional retail operation and you can find many pleasant surprises in them now. I love popping into them now in the (mostly) forlorn hope that I find some ultra-rare 1970’s shirt that is up for sale for 99p. The thrill of walking in and briefly looking at the clothes on the railing, was that an Adidas 3 strip I caught out of the corner of my eye? Damn it it’s a Lonsdale 2 strip sports direct T-Shirt. My football shirt collection at the minute is around 200 and growing mostly thanks to charity shops (with a special mention as well to eBay!) I can't honestly remember the last time I paid full price for a shirt, maybe for the 2001/2 season for a Newport Isle of Wight shirt to celebrate their one and only season in the Southern Premier League (one below conference level back then in old money) the majority of my shirts in my collection date from early 1990s up to a few years ago and all have cost no more than £7. And what delights you can find in the charity shop now if your luck is in (and that can be a big if) some days on my days off from work I might go round a few neighbouring towns to see what I can find, once I did 29 shops in 1 day and didn't find a single shirt then only a couple of weeks ago I found 5 shirts within 7 shops. Naturally you tend to find shirts from neighbouring league teams in the local shops, plus the usual England and Manchester United shirts everywhere but every now and then you will come across a hidden gem such as a 1993 lotto Croatia home shirt I found in Worksop for 99p or a set of 3 different Lillestrom (Norway) shirts in Matlock for £3 each and a 1970s Butka Brighton gk shirt for £4.50 in Retford. Whenever I'm driving through a new town or area now and I spot a charity shop I can't help but pull over and have a quick 2-minute look in the usually forelorn hope of unearthing something. When I’m in these shops sometimes I’m amazed at the quality of shirts donated and often wonder what the backstory is as to how did these shirts end up here (like. in the case of a shirt such as the AEK Athens shirt I found in Doncaster) I don’t buy all the shirts I find, normally I like to only buy shirts that fit me (or almost do!) and I don’t usually buy big English team shirts such as Man Utd, Arsenal etc as I like to have stranger team shirts that you don’t usually see. Out of all the shops I’ve been to I think I’ve seen pretty much most of the premier league teams, the usual Read Madrid, Barcelona shirts, a few Scottish, French, German, Norwegian and Greek teams but I have yet to ever see a Tottenham shirt in any form or size, This I guess is my holy grail!