No one knows how to tackle mud, grass and blood stains better than the chaps responsible for looking after white football kit. So I headed to Swansea City
ow does one get one’s whites whiter? I’ve washed at 40C and 60C and even 90C, with and without the pre-wash. And no joy. I have a friend from St Helens who runs a B&B in North Carolina and she swears blind she achieves perfect whiteness with a cold wash. Cold! I’ll believe it when I see it.
I’ve long wondered what it must be like to be in charge of a white-kitted football club’s kit. I had to find out. I paida visit, at their training ground on a windswept corner of the Gower peninsula. The car park, as is standard at these places, resembled the Geneva Motor Show. But the players’ marvellous motors were of no interest to me; I only had eyes for the kit room.
Michael Eames, the Swans’ kit manager, has been doing the job man and boy – his predecessor in the role was his mum. Michael and his assistant, Shaun Baggridge, seemed slightly alarmed at my level of interest but patiently explained that the secret to whiter whites is that there is no secret. Hard work and persistence pay off. They can’t even wash them at 60C lest the sponsors’ names start peeling off. So 40C it is.
Impressive stuff. Forty-odd years ago Coventry City famously sported a brown away kit. “Even to this day,” boasts the club’s website, “it is still voted among the worst strips of all time.” But by God, I bet they loved it in the laundry.
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