Team shirts: names, numbers, and the sizes nobody asks for

Kit for an amateur team on a real budget. What belongs on the front, what belongs on the back, and how to collect sizes from people who will not reply.

Amateur team kit is bought by one person on behalf of people who will answer a message about it in four days, and it still has to look like a team on the pitch.

Front and back do different jobs

The front identifies the team to everybody watching. The back identifies the player to the people who need to know which one they are. Putting both on the front makes a crowded shirt that does neither.

Names on the back, and what size

• A surname across the shoulders is readable from the touchline
• A first name is friendlier and suits a social team
• A number below the name is readable from further away than any name

Collecting sizes from people who will not reply

Give a deadline and a default. Say that anybody who has not replied by Friday is being ordered a medium. You will get most of the replies on Friday, and the ones you do not get are no longer your problem.

Each shirt in a group order carries its own size and its own name, so late changes only affect that one shirt rather than the whole order.

Budget honestly

Printed to order costs more per shirt than a bulk screen print of two hundred, and less than any minimum order you cannot fill. For a squad of twelve to twenty, printing to order is usually cheaper overall because you buy exactly what you need in exactly the sizes people wear.

One thing that ruins team kit

Very thin lettering. It looks sharp on a screen and disappears at thirty metres, which is the distance every person watching is standing at. Solid, heavy type reads. Fine type does not.