The Hunt For Football Jerseys

Yes, I know, at the age of nearing 39 maybe I should no longer wear football replica jerseys as some might consider that age to be too old to be wearing one...but who cares? I'd rather wear a Manchester United home kit with 'Rooney 10' on the back rather than wearing bermudas or whatever they call the just-under-the-knee length garment in order to look 'urban'.

Anyway, during the rather long weekend recently, I managed to go to Padang Besar to buy some casual clothings - there is quite a selection for XX (or more)L-sized clothings there. So I managed to get myself some undies and a work shirt. I still have change from my shopping budget and I thought, why not buy Adham a replica shirt? OK, I'm not into pirated goods but in this case, I ignore my principles as i) it's hard to find toddler-sized original replica shirts in Malaysia and ii) even when available, it's too large for him.

You need to be selective in choosing the fakes as they come in many grades (my brother knows better about this...haha). At least nowadays they come with the original manufacturers' logo (adidas, Nike, Reebok etc) as compared to 'localised' logo (such as 'Fly Hawk', 'Joelouis' etc) of yesteryear. Anyway, I managed to buy the Malaysian home jersey in which the ways (to me) to know that it's a fake is that the fabric is not as soft as the original and that the tags and labels look cheap. The wife wants to buy him a MUFC jersey but alas, he spotted a toy truck and we had to settle for the Malaysian jersey only. 

Anyway, looking at Adham's new shirt makes me want to buy one for myself, this time an original item. So off we went to Alor Setar. I checked out the Seberang Perak branch of Al-Ikhsan-nope, they have none in my size. So we went to the Teluk Wanjah branch. Yep, they have one in stock. Unfortunately when I tried it, it's so tight it feels more like an XL rather than XXL. Somehow the allegations that they (Al-Ikhsan) sells counterfeit goods as original crossed my mind then. However, it cannot be, as it has the hallmarks of a genuine item. Perhaps Nike manufacture the Malaysian replica jerseys with 'Malaysian' size in mind...arghhhh.  So I don't buy it. Anyway, I cannot help but notice some discrepancies in shirt sizes. For example, my old Argentina World Cup 98 shirt is quite comfortable to wear whilst the German WC2010 (of the same size-XXL) feels a bit tighter. And to make it a bit silly, my New Zealand All-Blacks shirt from 1999 is quite loose despite being one size smaller! So, nobody can accuse me of being 'unpatriotic' for not having a Malaysian jersey in my wardrobe!

Anyway, for my next 'quest' I intend to buy jerseys from non-UK clubs such as Ajax, Inter, PSG etc However such jerseys are very difficult to find in Kedah (or for that matter, Al-Ikhsan stores outside KL). So perhaps a visit to my old haunt, the original Al-Ikhsan outlet at BB Plaza is in order whenever I'm in KL.....