Each season’s kit launch is an exciting moment for any football fan, but for one Norwich City fan it is a chance to add another piece of history to his phenomenal collection.
Each season’s kit launch is an exciting moment for any football fan, but for one Norwich City fan it is a chance to add another piece of history to his phenomenal collection.
Billy Pointer, from Norwich, has amassed more than 450 city shirts since receiving his first, a blue tartan away strip from the 1994-1995 season given to him by his father for his birthday.
As Mr Pointer got older he began to take collecting more seriously and now owns some of the most important shirts in Norwich City’s history, including Canaries legend Kevin Keelan’s last shirt, a red and white striped shirt from 1992 which was never released to the public and used only in a trialist match against a City XI, along with Justin Fashanu’s 1979 away shirt worn against Wolverhampton Wanderers.
While football shirts are now a big business worldwide, prior to the 1990s it was rare that replica kits were made, so some of Mr Pointer’s earliest shirts have some intriguing stories to tell.
He said: “I’ve got a 1974 Umbro shirt and basically, John Bond in 1978, wanted a new Jaguar and there was a big waiting list at the time of over 100 people, but through his connections when he was with Bournemouth, someone at the club knew someone high up at Jaguar, so they got him to the front of the queue and he got his Jag. As as a thank you he gave that guy a load of old Norwich kit.
“The kit was then used by a Saturday team down in Bournemouth, and then eventually I got hold of three of them.”
This year Mr Pointer received a match-worn goalkeeper shirt as a special birthday gift from Tim Krul after chatting to him on the club’s summer pre-season tour of Germany, and he has also been able to obtain the shirt worn by Ben Godfrey when making his heroic goal line clearance in this season’s FA Cup fifth round tie against Tottenham Hotspur.
Mr Pointer says his collection is worth more than £30,000, with Kevin Keelan’s shirt alone valued at £4,000.
He added: “I don’t do it to make money, I do it because I personally enjoy it, but at a rough estimate the collection is worth over £30,000.”
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here