The World's Poshest International Collector

The life of a football shirt collector is an interesting one that leads you up the path of intrigue and discovery, many have tried mammoth tasks without even a sniff at seeing it through, but for one man and his quest for every FIFA recognised international team’s shirt, it led him to an unknown stratosphere on a worldwide game of cat and mouse.

From making friends in the House of Lords to a close shave in Syria, shirt obsessive Nick finally completed the set in early 2017 and can now boast the biggest collection of international football shirts in the world.

“My parents didn’t even realise I’d finished!” he joked, who following the capture of a Kosovo shirt three months ago made it the full set of a staggering 211.

On a seven year journey that spanned from the likes of England, Brazil and Germany to Yemen, Gibraltar and Togo, the Peterborough United fan has been on a weird and wonderful journey acquiring shirts from anyone who could help him get his hands on one.

“I already had a collection of Peterborough shirts when I was younger and I was having a conversation with my mate when I was doing a very mundane job at University. We were just talking about the idea of getting football shirts from various different places.

“We’d discussed the possibility of getting all the different national shirts, but dismissed it following the calculation of 200 shirts x £50 coming to £10,000! There was no chance I was going to do that”.

However, one year on, Nick would begin the journey that would take him well beyond that figure, and it all stemmed from a friend’s visit to the tiny nation and occasional battering ram of the English national team, San Marino.

“I got a random phone call from him [Nick’s friend] telling me he was in San Marino and if I wanted a shirt. Unfortunately I missed the call so I didn’t manage to get that one. But a year later I just thought, ‘Maybe I could do it’. So at two o’clock in the morning I was on Ebay looking at every single country I could think of”.

With over 200 shirts to collect you’d think it would be difficult for someone to know where to start, but with an England shirt joined by St Kits & Nevis, the early days were spent stumbling across hidden gems.

“I already had an England shirt and I had a St Kits & Nevis one which was one of the rarest ones without me even realising it! There were three Peterborough United players who played for them so I made contact on the internet and they said ‘I’ll get you one’”.

With a great start to the collection and some of the toughest finds already stumbled upon, things began to become pretty complicated with countries that half the world hasn’t heard of.

One of the jewels in Nick’s crown comes from Eritrea, a small nation of almost five and a half million inhabitants on Africa’s east coast. Perhaps one of the hardest shirts to find, Nick found a way in one of the most peculiar ways.

“My Eritrea shirt came from an Eritrean player who absconded from an away game and that was literally everything he had on him at the time. He’s now playing in the lower league in Germany and my mate went to meet him at a training session and got hold of the shirt for me”.

But from the sublime came the ridiculous, some politically unstable nations unsurprisingly don’t prioritise football, and when trying to get hold of his Syria shirt to add to the collection, Warrick’s friend was blacklisted by the country’s government when he made the transaction for the strip.

However, this wasn’t enough to faze the serial acquirer who by his own admission is “obsessed with collecting”. He has made friends the world over through it, one of which even flew from Germany to attend his wedding whilst others are in very high places. In one instance to grab himself a Lesotho home shirt he met up with the head of their FA in London when visiting, straight after he bagged the away shirt from Vintagefootballshirts.com!

Not only has he dealt with different nations’ governing bodies for the sport, but he’s also gone through embassies and even politicians.

“My mate has a friend in the House of Lords who visits a lot of former British colonies so he does stuff in the likes of Botswana and lots of places in the Caribbean. He literally just sends off an e-mail to someone and the equivalent of an embassy in Montserrat replied saying they could get one, and I got it straight from the national team.”

But from friends in high places to those footballers scrapping away trying to make it big in their own country or abroad, Nick has struck up a special friendship with the national team of Bhutan, gaining a collection in its own right from them.

“There are a few players who play for Bhutan and I’ve got 26 different shirts at the moment, every one since they joined FIFA! They’re amazing and I chat to them all time, they’re the friendliest guys ever. I send them boots occasionally and they send me shirts”. These aren’t the only players who Nick has dealt with, having spoken to those of his hometown club at Peterborough United.

“There was a few [players], a guy called Helgi Danielsson who gave me a match worn Germany v Poland shirt which was ridiculously generous, it’s amazing!”

Having used extensive research, help from friends and from numerous other sources in football and politics, Nick finally finished his collection this year in a feat that is rivalled by very few. The 31-year old Maths teacher who’s extraordinary quest alongside other collectors who’ve followed his blog religiously for nearly a decade comes to an exceptional end following the find.

“It was a bit of a relief when it all finished so I didn’t have to keep Googling ‘Kosovo Shirts’. I can now focus on spending my money on getting nicer shirts particularly from Africa or the Caribbean from the 1990’s; I really enjoy the vibrant colours”.

From match-worn pieces of history to the strange and unpredictable Eritrea, who’s adidas shirt was fake but somehow slipped past their FA to be worn during a match, to the dizzy heights of the German national team, Nick certainly has one of the greatest collections we’ve ever seen. Who knows what might come next from one of the football shirt world’s biggest and best collectors.

We salute you, Nick!