Rip-off prices for replica football shirts

Now while the fashionistas and more devout England fans out there might not bat an eyelid at forking out more than £60 for the shirt – and as much as £30 more for the de luxe shirts which assist with better breathing, apparently – there are many people for who that is far too much money.

And given that the majority of the shirts have been mass produced in some Far Eastern sweatshop factory where the workers are paid a pittance of a wage, being asked to fork out such an exorbitant sum to get hold of a shirt really does stick in the craw.

The England shirt is not the only one where this sort of thing goes on, of course.

Ordinary replica football club shirts also cost fans up and down the country well over the top.

And the same goes for rugby league, with Mr Pendle’s own Castleford Tigers club charging £45 for a replica of this season’s home and away kits and other clubs doing the same.

A recent televised Cas game saw many fans on the terraces sporting the amber or white shirts, so there is obviously a demand for them.

But Mr Pendle has not bought one, and while he may spend £20 on a T-shirt bearing the club badge, paying more than double that for a shirt is, in his opinion, little more than a rip-off.