The grassroots football kit ordering guide. Real 2026 prices.

Every June and July, the same thing happens at thousands of grassroots clubs across the UK. The committee meets, someone says "we need to sort kit before the season starts," everyone agrees, and then the secretary spends three weeks pinging supplier websites at 11pm trying to work out whether £24 a shirt is good or bad and how on earth you order eighteen of anything in seven different youth sizes.

This post is for that person. It walks through what kit costs in 2026, which suppliers are genuinely worth a look at the grassroots level, how the ordering process actually works, and the mistakes that are easy to make in May and embarrassing in September. The focus is the UK because that is the most active grassroots market and where most of the searchable suppliers are based, with a brief European section at the end for clubs reading from Spain, Germany, the Netherlands and France.

The short version

If you only have five minutes, here is the cheat sheet:

• Budget per player (full kit: shirt + shorts + socks, printed): £20-£40 at the entry-level grassroots end, £45-£80 in the mid-tier with the well-known brands, £90+ if you go premium or elite.
• Lead times: 3 to 6 weeks is standard. Plan back from your first competitive fixture and add a fortnight of slack. Anyone promising 5 days is selling you something pre-printed or low-customisation.
• Minimum order: Larger brand suppliers want 10-15 kits minimum. Newer direct-to-grassroots suppliers do 5 kits minimum or no minimum at all.
• Plan a 3-season lifespan. FA fixture cycles mean most clubs replace their kit every 2 to 3 seasons. Order accordingly.
• The most expensive mistake is sizing. Especially in youth football, where kids grow 8cm between order date and delivery.
• Most grassroots clubs underspend on training kit and overspend on match kit. Training kit is what actually gets used 100 times a season.

What does a kit actually cost in 2026?

Real prices, taken from active 2026 supplier sites, including printing of names, numbers, and a club badge unless noted.

Entry-level (£19-£32 per kit)

This is the direct-to-grassroots band that has grown fast since 2022. Suppliers like My Club Group, Epic Kits, Discount Football Kits, and a handful of independents print kits using dye-sublimation (the design is printed into the fabric, not on top) and ship them direct. Shirts start at around £19.50 and a full printed kit (shirt + shorts + socks, with names and numbers) is typically £24-£32 per player.

Minimum orders are low: My Club Group does 5 kits minimum, Epic Kits does 5 kits, Discount Football Kits has no minimum for repeat customers. Lead times are 3 to 5 weeks for the first order, faster for top-ups.

The trade-off: design templates are pre-built rather than from-scratch bespoke. You pick a base design and customise colours, logos, sponsors. Fine for most grassroots teams. Not what you want if your committee has very specific design ideas.

Mid-tier brand suppliers (£35-£60 per kit)

This is where the well-known sports brands sit at grassroots level. Macron, Joma, Stanno, Mitre, Errea, Hummel, and Puma all run "teamwear" programs aimed specifically at clubs rather than retail customers. Pricing is harder to publish because most of it goes through dealer networks (Discount Football Kits, Direct Soccer, Sportsleisurewear, Kit King, Total Football Direct, and others), but typical per-kit pricing including printing is £35-£60 depending on the range.

Macron now claims to supply 23% of UK grassroots clubs, which is a useful indicator of how dominant they have become in the mid-tier. Their grassroots-focused ranges (Rising for entry-level, Academy Evo for mid, Glory and Victory for women's and unisex) cover most needs.

The trade-off: minimums tend to be higher (10-15 kits is normal), and you may have to commit to a 2 or 3 year run of the same design to get the best pricing. Brand quality is generally a step up from entry-level direct suppliers in fabric weight, stitching, and longevity.

Premium and Elite (£70-£130 per kit)

Adidas, Nike, Puma's premium ranges, and Macron Elite. Used at the upper end of grassroots, semi-pro, and academy level. Most volunteer-run clubs do not need this, and the cost is hard to justify against the durability gain. Worth considering only if you have a sponsor covering kit, an academy partnership, or genuine cost-no-object resources.

Where premium starts to make sense is goalkeeper kit. A goalkeeper takes more impact in one season than a striker takes in three, and entry-level goalkeeper kit tends to fall apart fast.

Real budget examples

Example A: One-team Sunday league side, 16 players, entry-level supplier

• 16 full kits at £29.99 each (shirt, shorts, socks, names, numbers, club badge) = £479.84
• Goalkeeper kit (different colour shirt, padded shorts): £45
• Captain's armband, ball pump, two match balls (£25 each): £55
• Total launch budget: ~£580

Example B: Two-team youth club, 30 players total, mixed sizes, mid-tier brand (Macron Rising)

• 30 full kits at £42 each (shirt, shorts, socks, names, numbers, club badge, via dealer) = £1,260
• 2 goalkeeper kits at £55 each: £110
• Match balls (4 Mitre Impel at £18 each): £72
• Training bibs (2 sets of 14 in different colours): £80
• Cones, ladders, basic training kit: £75
• Total launch budget: ~£1,600

Example C: Established 4-team club replacing kit at end of 3-season cycle, ~70 players, brand mid-tier

• 70 full kits at £42 each: £2,940
• 4 goalkeeper kits at £55 each: £220
• Training tops for coaches and players (clearance £9.60 each, ~25): £240
• Replacement balls, bibs, cones: £200
• Total kit cycle budget: ~£3,600

That £3,600 spread across 3 seasons is £1,200 per season, or about £17 per player per season. Compared to the cost of replacing items that get lost when nobody tracks them properly, that is a manageable line item. Compared to what most clubs spend in panic-buying replacements through the season, it is actively cheaper.

Choosing a supplier: the honest comparison

For a typical grassroots committee, the supplier choice comes down to four real options.

Direct-to-grassroots specialists (My Club Group, Epic Kits)

Best for: Small clubs (1-2 teams), tight budgets, simple design needs, first-time orderers.

Strengths: Low minimums (5 kits), all-in pricing with no hidden printing charges, fast online design tools, decent dye-sublimation quality. £19-£32 per kit fully printed is genuinely cheap for what you get.

Weaknesses: Pre-built templates rather than full bespoke. Fabric weight is decent but not Macron-tier. Re-ordering top-ups months later sometimes runs into stock issues.

Brand dealers (Discount Football Kits, Direct Soccer, Kit King, Sportsleisurewear)

Best for: Established clubs, multi-team operations, anyone wanting brand recognition on the kit.

Strengths: Wide brand catalogue (Macron, Joma, Nike, Adidas, Puma, Hummel, Stanno, Mitre). Better fabric quality and longevity. Repeat-order systems work well across seasons. Larger dealers carry stock so re-orders are faster.

Weaknesses: Pricing is less transparent (quotes via form rather than direct prices). Minimum orders of 10-15 are normal. Printing costs are often separate line items (£2.25 per number, £20 set-up fees for new badges).

Direct from brand (Macron, Joma direct teamwear sites)

Best for: Multi-team clubs ready to commit to a 2-3 year brand relationship, or clubs with a regional brand rep.

Strengths: Best access to design tools, full bespoke options, brand consistency across teams. Regional Macron dealerships (Macron London West, Macron Stores in major cities) offer in-person service.

Weaknesses: Higher minimums, longer lead times for fully bespoke designs (8-10 weeks), and pricing usually requires a phone call. Worth it for larger setups.

Local print shop (independent suppliers in your town)

Best for: Clubs with a personal connection to a local supplier, or who want to support a local business.

Strengths: Direct relationship, easy in-person fitting sessions, no minimum problems, often willing to do urgent top-ups.

Weaknesses: Quality varies hugely. Printing methods may not be sublimation (iron-on transfers crack after a season). Pricing varies. Worth visiting in person before committing.

How the ordering process actually works

For a first-time orderer, here is what happens between deciding to order and receiving the kit.

Step 1: Design (1-2 weeks)

You pick a supplier, use their online kit designer or send them your brief. You choose base colours, pattern (stripes, hoops, plain, sash), sleeve treatment, collar style, badge placement, and sponsor placement. The supplier sends a digital mockup. You approve, or send back with changes. Most suppliers give you 2-3 rounds of revisions free, then start charging.

What tends to go wrong: Committees split on design preferences and the process drags. Set a hard deadline at your initial committee meeting. If you cannot agree in two weeks, the chair picks. Otherwise you are still arguing in mid-August and panic-ordering in September.

Step 2: Sizing (1 week if done right, 3 weeks if not)

You collect sizes from every player. For adult teams this is fast: send a WhatsApp poll with chest sizes (S/M/L/XL/XXL), get answers back within 48 hours, done. For youth teams it is harder: kids' sizes are by age (5/6, 7/8, 9/10, 11/12, 13/14) but actual size at a given age varies wildly, especially around 11-13.

The reliable approach for youth: do an in-person fitting session at training, with sample sizes the supplier provides for free. A parent measures each kid, writes it down. Two hours on a Wednesday saves three rounds of returns later.

What tends to go wrong: Sizes are collected by WhatsApp parents-guessing-their-kids'-size, half the order arrives too small. You then have to do a returns process, which adds 2 weeks and looks bad on the committee.

Step 3: Order placement and payment (1 day)

You submit the final design, sizes, names, and numbers. Most suppliers want full payment up front for first-time orders. Established clubs sometimes get 50% deposit terms after they have ordered before.

Step 4: Production (2-4 weeks)

The supplier prints. Some give you a tracking link. Sublimation printing physically takes a few days per batch but suppliers queue work so the wait depends on how busy they are. June and July are peak.

Step 5: Delivery and distribution (1 week)

Kits arrive at a club address. Someone has to sort by team and by player, distribute, get the sized-too-small kits returned. Plan a kit handover session at a training night.

The five mistakes that kill grassroots kit orders

1. Ordering too late

Pre-season starts in August. Most leagues kick off in early September. If you place a 5-week-lead-time order on 1 August, you are wearing kit for game 2, not game 1. The fix: place orders in May or early June. Boring, unsexy, works.

2. Underspending on goalkeeper kit

Goalkeepers spend the season diving on grass, AstroTurf, mud, gravel. Cheap GK kit literally tears at the elbow within 5-10 sessions. Spending an extra £15 per GK shirt for a padded mid-tier garment pays for itself by November. Goalkeeper gloves are a separate spend (£15-£40 per pair) and consumable.

3. Forgetting socks exist

At least one grassroots committee per league per year orders shirts and shorts and forgets socks. Then panics. Then orders mismatched socks from a different supplier. Then nobody can see the kit looks wrong but the photos. Order shirts, shorts, socks as one set.

4. Buying training kit at match-kit prices

You can buy plain training shirts (no print) at £9-£12 each in bulk, often on clearance. There is no reason to spend match-kit money on the t-shirt your team trains in. Most suppliers run clearance ranges specifically for this.

5. Not planning for player turnover

Players leave (left mid-season, moved house, dropped out, aged out of the age group). Their kit is now club property in theory and a t-shirt in their wardrobe in practice. If you ordered exactly 16 shirts for a 16-player squad, you are 16 minus turnover players short by Christmas.

Buy 15-20% over what you think you need. Most grassroots clubs do not, then end up emergency-ordering individual top-ups at higher per-unit cost.

What to do after the kit arrives

This is the part of the process most clubs do not think about, and where most of the avoidable cost happens.

A typical grassroots club spends £1,500 to £3,000 on kit at the start of a 3-season cycle. By the end of season 1, somewhere between 10% and 30% of that kit is unaccounted for. Shirts taken home to wash and not returned. Shorts left in a coach's boot. A player leaves the club mid-season and the kit goes with them. Goalkeeper gloves nobody can find. By the start of season 2, the committee has to top up by 20% just to be back where they started.

The fix is not complicated. Track what you own as you use it. Mark items lost when they go missing. Know who has what right now, this Tuesday evening, in real time.

Most clubs try a spreadsheet first. It works for a month, then nobody updates it. WhatsApp groups work for three weeks. Spond's kit feature is fine for fixtures but not built for the actual kit cupboard.

This is the gap ClubShed exists to fill. It tracks every kit piece by player and team, lets coaches scan a QR sticker to check items in and out, and generates an end-of-season audit that shows you exactly what survived, what got lost, and what to budget for next time. We wrote a separate post on running an end-of-season audit at your club which explains the process in detail. Even without our software, the audit process works with a spreadsheet. We publish a free spreadsheet template if you want to start there.

Grant money for kit

If the kit cycle cost is going to stretch your committee, there are grants. The Football Foundation's Grow the Game programme includes a £350 Nike kit and equipment voucher for clubs creating new teams. County FAs run smaller equipment top-up grants. Awards for All (National Lottery Community Fund) regularly funds grassroots clubs framing themselves as community projects.

The applications need evidence of what you own, what condition it is in, and what you would do with new equipment. This is the same evidence base that the audit process produces. The grant guide we published last month walks through the application process: Football Foundation grants for equipment.

European alternatives

The UK kit ordering ecosystem is the largest English-language one for grassroots, but readers in continental Europe have their own options.

Germany, Netherlands, Austria, and Belgium: Jako, Erima, Nike, and Adidas dominate. Jako specifically has a strong "Teamsport" line aimed at clubs, with online configurators and reasonable pricing. Most German Bundesliga youth setups use Adidas or Jako. Direct delivery from Germany to Benelux and Austria is fast.

Spain: Joma is the major brand, with very competitive pricing direct from the manufacturer. Kelme and Kappa also have grassroots ranges. Most Spanish clubs go through regional sports retailers (Decathlon, Forum Sport, or local sports tiendas) rather than direct-from-brand.

France: Le Coq Sportif, Hungaria, Adidas, Macron. The French Football Federation has its own affiliated supplier network that smaller clubs often use.

Italy: Errea, Macron, and Kappa are the dominant grassroots brands. Macron in particular is Italian and has strong direct-to-club distribution.

The general principle is the same wherever you are: low-minimum, dye-sublimation direct suppliers for small clubs; brand teamwear ranges for established clubs; local print shops as a back-up. Lead times are similar (3-6 weeks). Per-kit pricing is similar (€25-€45 entry-level, €40-€70 mid-tier).

A six-step plan for your kit order

Putting it together:

1. Set a deadline (early June). Backwards from your first competitive fixture, minus 6 weeks lead time, minus 2 weeks slack.
2. Decide on tier and supplier. Direct-to-grassroots if budget-conscious or first time. Brand dealer if established and going mid-tier.
3. Lock the design within 2 weeks. Committee deadline. If consensus fails, chair picks.
4. Collect sizes properly. In-person session for youth teams. WhatsApp poll for adults.
5. Place the order with 15-20% overage. For replacement and player turnover.
6. Set up tracking before the kit arrives. Decide whether you are using a spreadsheet, a WhatsApp group, or a dedicated tool. Set it up before you have 70 items sitting in a kit cupboard. The system you set up before is the system that works. The system you try to set up after never gets going.

Why ClubShed exists in this context

I co-founded HVV Football Factory, a grassroots football club. The kit ordering happened once a year. The kit losing happened constantly. Across three seasons we replaced about €1,000 worth of equipment every year. Most of it was kit. Shirts kept after a player left, shorts taken home to wash and not returned, jerseys mixed up between teams and never reconciled. None of it was theft. Just entropy.

ClubShed is the tool I wished my own club had. It tracks every kit piece by team and by player. It generates a QR sticker for every bag, bin, and kit bag that coaches scan to check in and out. It produces a one-click audit report at the end of each season that tells you exactly what survived, what got lost, and what you actually need to budget for next year. Affordable enough that any volunteer can sign up without a committee vote. Free for one team, 30 items, and 3 coaches. €15.99 a month for unlimited everything when you outgrow that.

Ordering kit well is half the job. Tracking it through the season is the other half.