2010/11 · Home

A V-neck cut, green and white hoops in sports cotton, and a sponsor only a neighbourhood club could have: Ottica Regard, the local optician, in discreet sans serif lettering across the chest, above the crest with the rampant lion of Italian heraldic tradition. It is match worn from 2010/11, with a synthetic leather 3 applied to the back, a texture you can feel by touch, the number of a full back who played in Ravenna's district categories. The brand is Macron, from Bologna, a few dozen kilometres away, a house that in 1971 started out selling American baseball equipment and today dresses national teams and professional clubs worldwide, but never stopped manufacturing for the Porto Fuoris of Italian football too. No piece in the collection is more understated than this one, and that is exactly why it matters: it represents the thousands of village clubs Macron dresses without ever making a headline, the quiet other side of the same business that sponsors Bologna.

Here at Hoopster, it is the quiet side of the archive: the corner opticians, a leatherette number 3 and the dignity of clubs that never make the headlines.