Running a Kit Programme for a Club or Team
By The Velocity Wear Team
Club and team kit looks like a straightforward bulk order and behaves like an ongoing programme. Members join mid-season, sizes change, garments get damaged, and everything ordered later has to match what was ordered first.
The mid-season problem
The player who joins in November needs kit that matches the squad. If your fabric has changed, your colour has drifted between dye lots, or the supplier has discontinued the garment, they get something visibly different — and on a team, visibly different is the whole problem.
Three things prevent it. Buy the full season requirement from one dye lot where colour matters. Confirm the garment will remain available. And keep a small buffer of the common sizes rather than reordering singly, since a one-piece reorder is expensive and slow.
Sizing across a real squad
- 1**Order per design, not per size.** A squad is not twenty mediums. Where the minimum is per design, as ours is at 20 pieces, a full spread costs nothing extra.
- 2**Publish garment measurements** and let people choose. Sizing varies between brands and guessing produces unwearable kit.
- 3**Include the extremes.** Excluding them excludes people, which on a team is worse than the cost.
- 4**Consider a fit session** for a first order — a set of sizing samples people try on removes almost all sizing error.
Names and numbers
Individual personalisation is what makes kit feel like it belongs to the person wearing it, and it is more affordable than people assume when the minimum is per design rather than per variant. Every piece in a 20-piece run can carry a different name.
The trade-off is that personalised kit cannot be reassigned. A player leaving takes an unusable garment with them, which argues for personalising playing kit and leaving training and leisure wear generic so it can be reused.
Durability matters more here than anywhere
Club kit is washed constantly, often hot, frequently tumble-dried by people who did not read a care label. Specify for that: heavier fabric, robust construction, and a decoration method that suits repeated washing.
For numbers and names, this is why heat-applied vinyl on a garment washed twice a week is a false economy — and why asking about wash durability, not just price, is the right question at ordering.
Paying for it
Mixed membership means mixed budgets. A tiered structure — a required core item and optional extras — lets people participate at different levels without anyone being visibly excluded.
Collecting orders and money before placing the production order is the standard approach and avoids the club carrying stock risk. Build the collection window into your schedule, because it is where the time goes.
