Football Shirt Printing
Customising a football shirt with a name and number adds personalisation and can be a great way to differentiate yourself from other fans or to show support for your favourite player. Football shirt printing makes for a perfect gift for football-mad friends and family.
Buy a shirt with printing
Buying a football shirt with printing added as an additional service at the point of sale is the easiest option to personalise your shirt.
Some retailers will sell football shirts with popular player names and numbers already printed or you may personalise with whatever name and number you choose.
You can also often add arm badges representing the league or competition your club is in (such as FA Premier League badges and FA Cup badges).
You can buy personalised football shirts online or offline. With local football shops becoming rarer and online prices often cheaper, you may want to focus your search to online stores. Well-known online football shirt printing shops include Kitbag and UKSoccerShop. You can typically expect to pay around £10 extra for shirt printing although retailers do often have free football shirt printing offers.
Get the professionals to personalise your existing shirt
It isn’t always convenient or possible to buy shirts with printing. You may have been given the shirt as a gift and now want to customise it, or your team may have only signed a player half way through the season.
Getting your existing shirt personalised can be as easy as taking it to your local football shop. However, some are funny about printing on shirts that you have not purchased from their store.
Luckily online shops offer a service where you can post in your existing shirt (washed of course) and they will apply the number and letting to your requirements. UKSoccerShop offers this service at £20 including return postage.
Personalise your existing shirt yourself
Alternatively, you could purchase the numbers and letters and apply to your exisiting shirt by yourself. This is likely to be the cheapest option.
Doing DIY football shirt printing is not as scary as it sounds. Although if you have doubts about your ability then you should leave it to the professionals.
All you need is a domestic iron to transfer the printing to the shirt. Doing it yourself also provides you with greater flexibility as to where to position the printing – you may want to distinguish yourself from others by having the lettering below the numbers or however your creative mind desires.
If going down the DIY option, be sure to buy the correct letter and number styles. There are different styles such as FA Premier League, La Liga, Serie A and International. Ensure you order the correct type of print transfers for your team/league to ensure it looks authentic. The online store will indicate what format you require.
Subside Sports has a vast selection of lettering and numbers. You may also want to take a look at UKSoccerShop.
What to print on your football shirt – you can be as creative as you like!
Most fans will opt for their favourite player and number on the back of their shirt. The best place to find out the number of a player in the current squad is to search for the team on Wikipedia.
Some fans will choose their own name or the name of their hero such as Zola or Cantona.
However, you may want to differentiate yourself completely by adding some humour.
Funny names to print on the back of your football shirt
You can print whatever you want to on your back. Let your imagination run wild. Here are some examples:
I 8 Arsenal (lettering above and below number)
Satan 66
Anyname 10 (typical default when ordering online)
You-Me 69
Some things to consider before opting for football shirt printing
Football shirt printing is common and so any major pitfalls have long been ironed out. However you may want to consider these factors:
Personalised shirts are often exempt from retailers’ returns policy.
Unless faulty, you may have a job returning your personalised shirt if you made a spelling error or if you purchased for a gift and didn’t know Torres in fact no longer plays for Liverpool (oops).
Printing can peel off over time
Depending upon the quality of the printing and application, shirt printing can begin to peel off over time. Football shirts are often worn a lot and therefore washed many times so this is to be expected. You can reduce the impact by not using fabric conditioner
Football Shirt Printing – Postage Costs
football shirt printing postageFootball shirts can become an expensive purchase after adding personalisation and purchasing new shirts when they are released each new season. The last additional cost you want to see at checkout are postage fees.
Some retailers such as Kitbag offer free delivery when purchasing above a certain amount (£50 at the time of writing). However, others charge up to £6 for delivery.
When purchasing personalised shirts online consider the additional postage fees and if you are going to be buying a number of shirts then place them all in one order as you will be charged just one delivery charge. If you are placing a significant order (over £100) consider e-mailing the retailer to request your shirts are delivered free.
Despite the additional postage costs, you are likely to find the initial cost of football shirts and football shirt printing cheaper online. Also, consider the time and petrol costs in going to an offline football shirt and printing shop versus ordering online.
The majority of online football stores deliver shirts using a first class service (typically Royal Mail) and also have an option for guaranteed express next day delivery (typically by courier). Some retailers are able to offer you the opportunity to select a date you want your goods to be delivered so that you can be sure to home to receive them (although Saturday delivery is typically higher).