A thousand shirts. One English club.

I own somewhere between 1,000 and 1,100 football shirts. Like many collectors, they come from all over the world. From England, they come from exactly one club.

That is rule one, and I have never broken it. Nothing from any other English team goes on my rail. Rule two is the one that starts arguments.

The house rules

1. No other English club. Liverpool, and nobody else from England.
2. No player after he signs for another English club. For example - France 1998 with Henry on it is fine. France with Henry after he joined Arsenal is not.
3. Originals only. Goes without saying.
4. Match worn isn't for me. I want to wear what I buy.
5. Player spec is optional. I'm not fussed either way.

The first one

My first shirt was bought for me: Liverpool home, 1987-88. It is tied up with how I became a Liverpool fan in the first place, a question my parents were on different sides of. I still have that child's shirt, and as an adult I bought the original again in a size that fits.

Liverpool, adidas, Crown Paints across the chest, in a size I grew out of decades ago.

Everything since has been built on that one. I now own nearly every Liverpool shirt ever released commercially, with about a handful still missing. Of the whole collection, it is the part I'm proudest of.

Canada, summer of 1994

I knew early that I was collecting and not just owning shirts. Three or four years in, it was already a collection. I grew up in the UK at a good time for it: Serie A, La Liga, big Nike and adidas campaigns, and World Cup kits people still argue about.

What opened it up was a holiday to Canada, right after the 1994 World Cup. I hadn't realised how international football shirts were until I saw them an ocean away from home. They were a common language. I live in Toronto now, and anything in my collection from the 1994 or 1998 World Cups still takes me straight back to those summers.

Found on the road

I find them everywhere and anywhere, most often while travelling. I've worked in travel, and adventure travel in particular, since 2014, and the job has taken me around the world. A lot of the collection came home that way.

Some of it was handed to me. Word of the collection spread among colleagues, and trips to Japan, Peru and Brazil ended with my hosts sending me off with a local shirt for the rail.

Others took years. Netherlands 1988, still talked about as the ultimate grail, was the hardest to land. I watched for it, missed it, and waited until the right one turned up. The hunt is now part of that shirt's story. My favourite is a different shirt again: Italy 2000 by Kappa, for the design, the era, the players and how it makes me feel. The one still missing is the Inter Milan third shirt from 1997-98.

The jersey room

The thousand live in my office, which I've turned into a jersey room. They hang behind me during business meetings, and they start conversations whether the meeting has anything to do with football or not.

The shirts do the same job when I travel. For work trips I often wear the local club's shirt or the national team's, and people come over to talk. I'm a keynote speaker in the travel industry, and I've started wearing football shirts on stage. It has become my thing.

“It's not a competition. It's a collection.”

What collectors get wrong

For someone with this many shirts and this many rules, my advice to other collectors is relaxed. Enjoy each shirt you buy. Enjoy the process. Collecting is a journey with no finish line, and nobody is keeping score.

I've seen how quickly it can get out of hand. A collection should be something you enjoy around the rest of your life.

A thousand shirts in, my rules haven't moved. One English club. Everyone else is welcome.