By Ben Smallman
Four lifelong Wolves fans are proving that they’re cut from a different cloth, after spending 18 months creating an iconic commemorative shirt to celebrate the club’s impending 150th anniversary.
Despite enduring one of the most depressing seasons in recent history, Kieran Newey, Alex Moore, Nathan Crawford and Ryan Leister are proving that ‘out of darkness cometh light’, by way of a rich, old gold design which represents a departure from the yellow shade adopted by the club over the past eight years.
The quartet have teamed up a UK manufacturer to produce the shirts and are hoping they can get them to market for just £50 – proving that high quality replica tops don’t have to cost the earth.
Better still, the majority of profits will be donated to local Wolverhampton charity Compton Care, with the rest going to fund future displays and flags by the Old Gold Pack.
Kieran, aged 40, said: “It’s a shirt designed by the fans, for the fans and grounded in the club’s history – but not stuck in the past. It literally started with Alex and Nathan playing around with ideas and sending designs into the group chat. It was more of a ‘what if’ at first, but the more we looked at it, the more we thought we could actually make something happen.
“We’ve always been into football kits and the stories behind them. We were constantly sending designs from other clubs into the group chat and saying ‘imagine if we did something like that for Wolves?’ Eventually it just turned into a ‘why not actually try it?’
“Once we started, we agreed that we wouldn’t do it half-heartedly and were committed to creating something that genuinely felt like a fitting tribute to mark the150 years and our formation in 1877.”
Ryan Leister, 46, added: “In recent seasons, I’ve had several ideas for football shirts, with a particular focus on Wolves. During the protest movement (earlier in the season), I got to know Kieran better and shared one of my shirt concepts with him. It turned out that he, along with Alex and Nathan, had a similar idea and had already started developing it.
“Until you are involved in a project like this, you have no idea how much work goes into it. But it has all been worth it and we are delighted with the outcome.”
Taking their inspiration from some iconic jerseys of the past, the shirt is adorned with a town crest synonymous with Wolverhampton, taking inspiration from it and reworking it into something that reflects the city, as supporters would like to see it.
“It’s about respecting where we’ve come from while putting our own mark on it and telling that story in a way that feels like it belongs to us,” Kieran added.
The stripes are a nod back to the original kits, while the design also features details that reference St Luke’s and the founding of the club, along with other subtle touches that weave different eras together.
Kieran and Alex are no strangers to high-profile Molineux creations, with the pair setting-up the Old Gold Pack (OGP) fans’ group and designing different displays over the years, especially during the COVID period and for the Raúl Jiménez fundraising banner and recent Diogo Jota tributes.
Kieran added: “That was probably the moment it clicked that fans could organise something bigger. From there, it just grew into wanting to create displays properly, and OGP came from that.
“It hasn’t been easy watching things unfold over the last few seasons, and fans have every right to feel how they feel. But supporting Wolves isn’t something you pick up and drop – it’s part of who you are. This is our way of reminding people what that support is really about. Our club, our city, our history; that’s what matters, and that’s what we’re backing.”
A launch event to celebrate the 150th anniversary shirt will be held at North Street Social in Wolverhampton on May 23 (7pm start).
Local band The Last Pioneers will provide the entertainment with fans able to place their pre-orders to be among the first supporters to get their hands on what is expected to be a much-sought-after piece of Wolves history, with the first batch of shirts landing from mid-July.
There will also be the opportunity to order online from the Old Gold Pack website following the launch, as Wolves fans look to secure a unique piece of the club’s 150-year history.
For more information, visit https://oldgoldpack.co.uk/150th-anniversary/
