My Admiral Norwich City Collection
When you’re born and raised in Norwich your blood runs yellow and green. My Dad and Grandad were both City fans and used to go to Carrow Road for most home games when I was young. They’d take me down to some matches but I was far too young to remember what happened and who we were playing.
The memories are more vivid in the following seasons. I remember the walk around the corner at the riverside to see the flood light poles rising high above the Barclay End, the clicking of the turnstiles and that sound of groups chatting pre-match. The smell of the football ground food as you pass through the concourse and the moment the pitch starts to come into view, like the sun rising in the morning and the grin starts to grow on your face. This route is one that I take to this day and the emotions of being a young fan come flooding back.
Being a 90s kid I unfortunately missed out on the Admiral craze of the 70s and 80s, however many of my friends still have their original shirts, the first replica Norwich shirt which was available to fans, which they used to have to order at the local Pilch Sports Shop. They didn’t have kit launch events back then so you had to take a trip down to see the shopkeeper and see if your order had arrived. I find the whole Admiral story very interesting, the fact that the replica kit market we have today was started by the brand in the early 70s. I guess because of this I have Admiral to thank for my enthusiasm for football shirts.
Norwich Collection
I’ve been collecting match worn Norwich City shirts for nearly 10 years now. What started out initially as a wardrobe rail full of replica shirts has developed into approximately 650 items dating back to 1971. The first match worn shirt I landed was a poppy match worn shirt from eBay and since the day that dropped through my letterbox I had the bug for collecting. I now search globally to bring Norwich match worn shirts back to Norfolk and into the collection.
I decided to create a social media page to document and display the journey of the shirts and how they arrived in my collection. What makes my collection of shirts different and special is that you can't just go and get exactly what you want, you have to sit and wait and search and search in the hope that what you need comes up. When it does, nothing even comes close to that feeling of landing the deal on a very special shirt, worn by a club legend.
In this never-ending kit search I’ve managed to pick up some great Admiral shirts. They are some of the rarest Norwich shirts out there but I have 6 currently and always looking to expand on this.
This green goalkeeper shirt was worn by Kevin Keelan for his last game vs Liverpool. He made 673 appearances for the club and ended his career on the 9th February 1980. The kit lady added KK above the badge for these final games.
Looking back through some old footage and gathering some information over the years I believe this white away shirt with short sleeves was worn by Justin Fashanu on 13th October 1979 vs Wolves.
I have another white away shirt in my match worn collection. This one is long sleeved and was worn by central defender Phil Hoadley in a game in 1979.
The first of my two Kevin Bond shirts is a long sleeved home kit worn between 1978-80. Kevin Bond moved to the club when his dad, John Bond, got the job at Carrow Road. He stayed at the club until his dad bought him again in 1982 taking him to Manchester City.
Billy Steele made his Norwich debut in 1973 but was injured very young which limited his game time. A knee injury in his second season eventually forced Steele to retire and in 1979 the club honoured him with a testimonial game against England. This shirt was worn by number 2 that day, Kevin Bond.
My Norwich shirt collection is stored on rails across two rooms in my house and I've taken between 10 and 30 shirts to 3 events over the years, with a few more booked in this year. There is due to be a Poppy football shirt display on November 3rd 2024 and I’ve also paired up with a fellow collector on a match shirt book which is in progress and should come out later in 2024. Keep your eyes peeled!
