This is an original Norwich City football shirt worn between 1933/34 and 1946/47 when the Canaries played in Division Three South and Division Two.
It is very similar in style to the shirts worn between 1927/28 and 1932/33. The only differences was those shirts featured a white collar and the yellow and green shirt panels and sleeves were on the opposite sides.
This shirt was manufactured by Bukta; an English sportswear company founded in 1879. They made shirts for most of the other professional clubs in the 1930s and for the England team.
Bukta were still making kits through to the 1990s before the company folded. The brand was relaunched in 2005.
R.G. Pilch Sports Outfitters
The shirt was supplied to the club by R.G.Pilch Sports Outfitters.
They were a local business that had been established in 1906 with a shop in Brigg Street in the city centre.
The shop was there for years – I can remember visiting when I was a kid. Sadly, they are no longer trading and the business was acquired by Jarrolds Sports in 2005.
Unnumbered
This shirt is unnumbered as was typical of the period. This dates this particular shirt to the 1933/34 to 1938/39 seasons.
Some teams had been wearing numbered shirts since 1928 before it was made compulsory for all teams by the Football League in 1939.
Looking at old photos, most Norwich players rolled the shirt sleeves up to the elbows rather than wearing them long.
Oldest shirt
This is easily the oldest shirt within my collection; it’s rapidly approaching 100 years old!
You can see more photos of this shirt here.
It’s incredibly rare and I know of just one other original 1930s Norwich City shirt that has also survived.
Hopefully there are more still waiting to be re-discovered.