Newton Aycliffe Youth Football Club are an F.A. Charter Standard Community Club, established over 30 years ago, in 1989. The club provides football for over 300 boys and girls from four years old to adult, giving a clear path for the children to fulfil their football ambitions.
As last season was coming to an abrupt halt, when lockdown arrived, the football club started their search for a bespoke strip to give them a clear and unique identity. Sportswear companies were contacted and, after several discussions, the decision was made to build a partnership with Farrelly’s of Middlesbrough.
The club provided a brief of what was required, most importantly the main colour for the strip needed to be royal blue. The club has always played in royal blue as their home kit and been identified across the area by their royal blue colours on match day.
Club Chairman, Martin Smails, commented “I played for the club as a young lad, then progressed to coaching and managing teams before becoming Chairman, and it was important to me that the new strip had our traditional royal blue colours”.
A team of designers at Farrelly’s offered 14 strips with various designs, making it very difficult to narrow the choice down, but eventually the final two were chosen. This then went to a vote of managers and coaches across all our teams who made the final decision. As well as the outfield strip the designers produced two unique goalkeeper designs which were offered to all our goal keepers with a choice of colours.
All the decisions were now made, but the first lockdown prevented the manufacture of our kit to progress, as the factory staff were furloughed alongside the suspension of football.
Club Secretary, Berni Borsberry, remarked “this was a frustrating time for everyone at the club, we knew that eventually lockdown would be lifted and football would restart, but only then could manufacturing commence. However, the result was a unique strip that all our players would be proud to wear”.
As the strips started to come off the production line, each team started immediately to wear their new bespoke kit and all received excellent comments from players, parents and opposing teams.
The official launch of the strip was set for the weekend of 31st October 2020, just as the second lockdown was announced, and once again football would be suspended, but we are all hopeful that we can proudly wear our new strip as soon as possible.
A final comment from Jamie Nee, MD at Farrelly’s, “we are delighted to be the chosen partner for Newton Aycliffe Youth Football Club and delighted that we could provide a strip, built on the royal blue tradition of the football club. Hopefully this is a partnership between Farrelly’s and the club for many years to come”.
If you need any further information about any of the teams at the club, visit www.nayfc.com
