Muristek
Arjan Wijngaard was given an Everton shirt 25 years ago. His life has not been the same since
By Josh Butler for These Football Times
What do you do when you have nearly 3,000 football shirts in your possession? If you are the Dutch football fan and collector Arjan Wijngaard, you allocate a room in your house as an exhibition space and log every single shirt you buy in a comprehensive online catalogue. Arjan has been collecting shirts from around the globe for the past 25 years, beginning with an Everton kit he was given in 1997, and he now boasts one of the largest, if not the largest, personal collections in Europe.
What drew him to the idea of collecting shirts? “Of course, I liked football. That is an important thing if you want to collect shirts. There is no particular reason why I chose shirts, though. Some people choose scarves – I have some scarves as well because, if I can’t get a shirt when I visit a stadium or a game, I try to buy a scarf instead. Actually, maybe I should have chosen scarves or pins; they are a lot cheaper and don’t need that much space!”
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