A crackerjack Champions League fixture of recent vintage spawned a market for the shirts of both combatants: Tottenham Hotspur were kitted out in a little-sighted green shirt when Mauricio Pochettino’s team completed a staggering comeback in Amsterdam to beat Ajax in the 2018/19 semi-finals. “That was Tottenham’s third shirt, so it wouldn’t have been mass produced,” says Bierton. “Because of that famous victory and the design and rarity of the shirt, the retail price has tripled in under four years. And Ajax’s run in that competition captivated audiences. It was the team of [Matthijs] de Ligt and [Frenkie] de Jong. Erik ten Hag was manager. All those factors end up giving the jersey legacy value and it becomess a modern classic.”

Bierton earmarks shirts that will become future classics too, monitoring significant events and harnessing a sense for emerging cult heroes. A decade from now, he reckons, there will be no mistaking jerseys from 2018 to 2022. “It is a classic era of graphic design,” he says. “Teams often go wilder with their third shirts. Manchester United beat Paris Saint-Germain in 2019 wearing a pink jersey, and they’ve had the zebra away shirt. Tottenham’s shirt from 2021, purple with what looks like a paint splodge, is typical of the era.

“Shirts in the ’80s were tight fitting: a large was the equivalent of today’s small. From about 1988 onwards, we had the first graphic design period and the early ’90s was the high watermark for complete craziness. The bagginess of sleeves grew bigger until around 1998, then tapered down. Collars disappeared around 2002, then the physical feel of shirts from the mid-2000s is different.”

A number of CFS’s 125 staff operate on a slick assembly line. Shirts removed from piles of boxes are divided into large cages, according to club or international identity. An indefatigable washing machine, capable of holding 150 shirts, ploughs through ten cycles per day. The shirts are steamed before a listing team conducts quality and authenticity checks and determines pricing. Photographers capture the jersey and it is posted online.

Damaged goods are ‘upworked’ by the genius digits of Helena, the skilled seamstress who is integral to CFS’s aim of operating a wholly sustainable business. We see a Manchester City cotton tote bag and an Aston Villa bucket hat, both adroitly crafted from spoiled jerseys.

A host of footballers have witnessed this operation first hand, says Bierton, with the shirts “stirring playing memories and transporting the players back to their childhoods. Ian Wright was fixated on an Allan Clarke Leeds shirt – it turned out he was one of his heroes.”

Clarke was prolific in the ten years until 1978, and the passage of time naturally swells the classic market. “Classic is ever-expanding and captures more and more people,” adds Bierton. “Customers in their fifties and sixties want shirts from the ’80s. I am drawn to the ’90s. A child who watched the World Cup final will treasure that memory in 15 years and might want a Messi or Mbappé shirt from the match.”  

He finishes on a philosophical note. “There is nothing more powerful than seeing a shirt and being instantly taken back to a specific time. For football fans, it is often more pleasant to live in the past than the present.”