The Ultimate Football Shirt Size Guide

It doesn't matter if you are buying a football shirt or a pair of socks. If it doesn't fit you then what is the point of owning it? When it comes to buying shirts there are quite a few hurdles to jump over before you can be certain that the shirt you bought saying "medium", will actually be a "medium" and not an "extra large" (it happened to me before). In this detailed article I will show you how to ensure that you get what you want when it comes to football shirts sizing. All of the information has been collated using examples from my entire collection so you can trust what I am saying below. 

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A universal Method Of MEASURING a Shirt

It is all well and good using a size chart for your country when it comes to purchasing items of clothing that are specially created for your country. You can trust that a medium will be a medium and so on. However this gets much more difficult when it comes to buying shirts from different continents and countries. I can promise you that you will have problems straight away if you think a medium is the same size across the globe. This then means we need to find a more universal method of referring to shirt sizes which translates across the world. For me this is measuring a shirt by it's chest size. No matter where you are in the world a 40" chest will always be a 40" chest. Now this maybe a medium in one country and a large in another but you can guarantee the size of that shirt and compare it directly against your own needs. 

Chest Measurement

In order to measure the chest size of a shirt you are to take your measurement from one armpit to the other like shown in the diagram. You are then to double your reading in order to get your full chest size. So if you measure 19" then times it by two and the chest size is 38". With this information you should now be able to cross reference this value to your own countries size chart and see if it corresponds with what you are needing. Unfortunately this isn't all that helpful if you have already bought the shirt, only to find out that it isn't the size that you need. If you are lucky then the retailer may be generous to tell you the chest size of the shirt beforehand, but in most cases this unfortunately isn't something you can expect to see. As the world of football shirt collecting gets more international it is up to us collectors to force retailers to give us a tangible measurement like this and not for them to just say it is a "medium" without any reference to what "medium" it is.

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Making A Change

It has got to a point now where we absolutely need to see a specific measurement next to any shirt that is for sale. Football shirts are getting ever more expensive and supporters and collectors alike don't have the money or time to spend measuring and exchanging shirts, as the one they bought is smaller and tighter than expected. That is another aspect that needs to be made more obvious. If the shirt is a tighter fitting shirt. You might have been able to ensure it is the correct chest size for you but if it ends up being a tighter fit then it still won't fit regardless. I am speaking from first hand experience here as I have bought many shirts over the years with the intention of them being "medium" but them coming back totally different sizes. 

A Medium?

The best (worst) example of this is shown in the Club Sportivo Patria football shirt that I bought from Classic Football Shirts. I only ever buy medium UK football shirts which means that they need a chest size of 38-40". Seeing this shirt advertised as a medium (evidence) I decided that I would add this to my collection as it is a unique team. When I opened up the package and laid out the shirt I knew it felt bigger than it rightly should be. I pulled out the tape measure and had a look at what chest size the shirt was. You can imagine my surprise and annoyance when it turned out to be a 46" chest! A whole 6" above what is required for a UK medium. Unfortunately I didn't actually truly measure it about five months down the line so I couldn't return it, which I would have if I had done so. Now I appreciate the fact that it says "medium" on the tag of the shirt but a website as popular and experienced as Classic 

Football Shirts should know that this shirt isn't going to be classed as a medium in many countries if any. You can still say that it is manufactured as a "medium" but at least accompany this with a chest measurement so we know what to compare it against. I suspect that there aren't all that many people who own loads of "Sport 2000" shirts with which they can refer back to. Plus it is likely that most people wont be familiar with what Argentinians in 2005/2006 classed as a "medium" shirt. So I would argue that there was no way of me knowing the true size of this shirt unless I had asked the retailer beforehand. This then presents problems for two different customers. You have the customers who are looking to buy a medium shirt but ending up with an extra large that they cant use. Then there are the customers who are looking for an extra large shirt but would overlook this shirt as they would never think that it would be the one for them, as it is advertised solely as a medium. 

Football Shirt Manufacturers

Lets see how every football shirt manufacturer performs and see who you can trust with their labeling and who to be wary of. Note that I will be focusing on the size of medium UK as this is the shirt size that I require for my collection. I will make this as detailed as I can so you won't have any ambiguity about what the shirt is actually advertising itself as.