“You are standing and cheering for your clothes to beat clothes for another city,” says Jerry Seinfeld of supporting a team.
For a lot of people, many of the life lessons they’ve learnt over the past three or four decades have come from “Seinfeld”. Even sporting lessons. And in his season 6 episode 12 monologue, Jerry Seinfeld provides us with a classic “it’s funny because it’s true” moment.
“Loyalty to any one sports team is pretty hard to justify,” he says. “The players are always changing, the team can move to another city. You are actually rooting for the clothes when you get right down to it. You are standing and cheering for your clothes to beat clothes for another city.”
Jerry is referring to American sports, but it’s just as true in Australia. As he points out, if a player switches to the colours of another team, your feelings for them are likely to change pretty quickly from one end of the “love-hate” spectrum to the other.
Seinfeld’s monologue was the first thing I thought of when I was approached by my friend and fellow footy lover, Tim Rath, about collaborating on a book on footy jumpers – a book whose main focus would be neither the players, nor the clubs; not even the grounds they played on. It would be all about the jumpers.
I did not have to think twice about the idea before saying “yes” to Tim. A book about footy jumpers. The more I thought about it, the more ridiculous it seemed that it hadn’t been done before.
A year-and-a-half later, “The Footy Jumper Book – Vintage Football Guernseys of Australia” has found its way into the world. And Tim and I are mighty proud of it.
As a keen collector of jumpers himself, Tim has travelled the length and breadth of the country seeking to photograph rare and unusual jumpers, and to record the stories behind them.
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I joined Tim on some of his travels, and also met up to chat with a number of players and manufacturers whose jumpers feature in the book.
These range from the famous, such as Geoff Southby (who once wore a Carlton jumper adorned with the Australian coat of arms) and Don Scott (who still has the lace-up Hawthorn jumper he wore in only one game) to “Boozer” Robertson, a Mallee man who could tell footy stories until the cows come home.
The players who wore them help to tell their stories, but the jumpers themselves – all from the woollen/acrylic pre-printing era – are the real stars.
“The Footy Jumper Book” features more than 300 guernseys across 180 full-colour pages. Tim’s design skills, well-known to many via his “Sporting Nation” products, have helped make the book a magnificent thing to look at, and I hope my words (and Tim’s) have helped to enhance its stunning images.
We’ve featured jumpers going back more than a century, such as those belonging to Bert Rankin, who played his last game for Geelong in 1913, and guernseys from the fledgling days of the Victorian Women’s Football League.
There are jumpers from all states and territories, in various states of repair and featuring unusual designs. One Western Australian state jumper from 1921 even features detachable sleeves!
The release of the book has already spawned stories of other jumpers, and Tim and I are even now pondering the idea of a ‘Volume II’. In the meantime, “The Footy Jumper Book” is available now via “Sporting Nation” and at selected book and gift shops.
In conjunction with The Footy Almanac, an official launch of “The Footy Jumper Book” will take place over lunch at the North Fitzroy Arms on Friday March 31 at 12:30pm. Bookings available rsvp@footyalmanac.com.au
