Classic Football Shirts

Classic Football Shirts is the largest collection of classic, rare and vintage football shirts in the world. Meet the founders Matthew Dale and Doug Bierton and learn how they created a shop that captures the history and culture of football in the heart of Manchester. 

Matt: In 2006, we were just finishing university and trying to avoid getting a real job and ended up stumbling across selling football shirts. We started from a small collection of fifty to a hundred shirts and from there just progressed, buying more, and investing everything we made into just buying more stock.  

Doug: Manchester is great place to be with Manchester United and City, especially when they’re competing in the Championship League, all the international tourists are coming here. Manchester is the centre of football, really. That means we can be part of this tour of Manchester, whether it's going to Old Trafford, going to the Northern Quarter or going to Classic Football Shirts. 

Doug: The majority of the shirts now come directly from customers who are either sorting out their own collection, moving house or tidying up the garage and come across these boxes of old shirts. That’s where we get a lot of the great classics from.

Doug: Obviously, time is a key factor, how old something is. Then there’s the design, is it particularly iconic and special or different from what’s gone before? The players that have played in it. Has it been a successful team, that’s won something or done a memorable match? The more of those boxes that get ticked, the more classic something is seen to be.    

Matt: Go for it really. That’s what we did. It’s a good time if you do have an idea to at least try and put everything behind it. That's what we thought and we didn’t really have anything to lose essentially. If you can start small and scale up that's the best way to do it.    

Ideally, we would go everywhere and give everybody the opportunity to have Classic Football Shirts in their hometown for a period of time. The same with exhibitions, we would  like to go to all the major cities and countries around the world and give everyone the opportunity to see these amazing shirts. 

Discover more of Manchester's culture here