Sector guide · Sports & teamwear
A club's kit is three wardrobes wearing one badge: matchday, training, and the travel-and-touchline layer that parents and committee actually buy most of. Getting the system right matters more than any single shirt — and clubs work with a supplier in two distinct ways.
The two routes
Many clubs already run a kit line — a league-registered strip, a brand deal, a kit committee decision from 2019 — and need a supplier who can badge it properly: club crest, initials, sponsor logos, stitched or pressed correctly onto garments that already exist. Others want the whole thing supplied and customised — training wear, hoodies, polos, bags — from one catalogue with the crest applied before dispatch.
Both routes run on the same asset: a digitised club crest (and clean sponsor artwork) set up once. Stitch counts, thread colours and placement then reproduce identically whether the order is one manager's gilet or forty junior hoodies — which is what makes a club look like a club.
The system
| Layer | Garments | The spec logic |
|---|---|---|
| Matchday | League-spec shirts, shorts, socks | Often league- or sponsor-constrained — we badge to the rules |
| Training | Wicking tees, drill tops, shorts | Washed hardest — synthetic wicking fabric, printed numbers optional |
| Touchline & travel | Hoodies, polos, softshells, beanies | Where crest + initials embroidery shines — and what funds club shops |
| Staff & volunteers | Coach polos, first-aider hi-vis | Identification on a busy touchline is a safety feature |
The details
Initials beat names on club leisurewear — they survive squad churn and kit handover, and they're the difference between a hoodie that gets re-issued and one that leaves with the player. Numbers and large sponsor panels print (scale and fabric make it the right method); crests and initials embroider — the same split as workwear, applied per garment. And sponsor artwork deserves the same one-off digitising discipline as the crest: a fuzzy sponsor logo on forty chests is a renewal conversation nobody wants.
Fabric-wise, club kit lives or dies in the wash basket: wicking polyester for anything worn to sweat, cotton-rich only for the leisure layer, and everything specified against a club-laundry reality of hot washes and zero garment care — the branded-kit wash rules apply, they just won't be followed.
Ordering
Questions
Yes — badge-only work on kit you already have is routine: crest and initials embroidered, numbers and sponsor panels printed, onto your existing garments or ours. Clean sponsor artwork digitised or vectorised once keeps every batch consistent.
Both, by item: crests and initials embroider (they survive club washing), numbers and large sponsor panels print (scale and stretch fabrics favour it). The garment and the artwork decide, not a single house rule.
Wicking polyester — training wear is washed harder than any other club garment and worn to sweat. Save cotton-rich fabrics for the hoodies-and-polos leisure layer where comfort and embroidery matter more than drying speed.
In the close season — badge-and-supply lead times double in July and August as every club and school orders at once. A committee decision in May is a full kit bag in August; a decision in August is a part-delivered September.
Supply and customise, or embroider what you already use — send the logo and the headcount.