Introduction
Many football clubs, if not all, have a football badge which normally appears on the club’s shirt and the national flag. Loyal fans and supporters of these clubs normally pride themselves in the badge, and as such, would try every means possible to acquire the badges. There are a number of places that one can get such badges, but the most common one would be from the “badgeman” in stadiums during football matches or in the clubs’ shops.
History
The history of football can be traced to over 2000 years ago somewhere in China. However, the history of the game’s badges is not that clear, though it is believed that the badges have been around for centuries. But in early 1900s, production of the badges in large scale started growing, and the drop stamp machine invention in the mid 1800s was a main factor contributing to this. In many cases, the badge’s history is normally associated with the club’s history. As such, each soccer club has its own story line about its football badge. Moreover, the designs of the badges are not static, and sometimes they undergo changes over the years. For instance, the Chelsea Football Club has a history of slightly over 100 years, and so does its club badge. During this period, the club’s badge has seen five changes done to its design.
Features
A football badge, just like any other badge, requires fixing. There are many styles that the badge can be affixed to the shirt or wherever else one would like to have it. However, it depends with the style of the badge, the designer and the use. For instance, if it is to be affixed on the player’s shirt, then the safety pin style of fixing the badge can’t work due to player’s safety, and as such, an alternative way has to be used, like stitching the badge on the shirt. In the UK, many of the manufacturers of these club badges came from Birmingham, and some of the common names in badge making are:
• Reeves
• R.E.V Gomm
• Firmin
• Miller
• FAttonni Gaunt
• Coffer.
In most cases, the manufacturer will come up with their own unique style of the soccer badge which will be replicated across the various badges they will make for different clubs. For instance, the design of badges made by R.E.V Gomm capture both a club’s name and nickname, together with a ball. However, the shapes of the badges might vary from one club to another. Contracting in badge making is also very common. Coffer was one of the very famous makers of club badges, but ironically, they themselves didn’t actually make any since they contracted this to other companies.
Tips and comments
Other than for club identification and loyalty, the other common reason that a football badge becomes important is for hobby purposes, and in this case, the hobby is badge collection. Badge collection as a hobby has been around since the 1960s and it is still growing. And perhaps, the Association Football Badge Collectors could offer you a good platform to venture into the hobby and get to have a taste of some of the original club badges there are.
