Classic Football Shirts shop is an expensive blast from the past

Word to the wise for would-be homeowners; the deposit to a house might be hiding in your drawer.

Classic Football Shirts, already a hit with London and Manchester football fans, opened its doors near St Stephen’s Green recently.

Best described as Aladdin’s Cave for football fans, the Chatham Street shop has the very latest in football shirts from 2026, and as the name implies, all the classics.

On the top floor, you are greeted with rows of all the hits from over the years: a Beckham-era Manchester United shirt, a 2003 Real Madrid away kit with Zidane’s name on the back, and a 1999 Inter Milan away shirt with original Ronaldo’s name on it.

The catch? The prices are out of this world.

It is very possible to rock up to the shop with a grand in your pocket, and it would only be enough for five shirts.

Classic Football Shirts is the football fan equivalent of going into Brown Thomas for a gawk; nice to look at, but there’s no way you could afford the stuff in there on a normal person’s salary.

Of course, if you have the spare income of a footballer, then the shirts for sale should be enough to fill a wardrobe.

Having visited the original shop in Manchester last November (and being gobsmacked that a 1993 Manchester United away shirt with Cantona on the back had a pricetag of £350), it is humbling to know that pieces of football history are sitting on the racks of a Dublin shop.

One thing that became apparent during the visit was that the more famous the name was on the back or the more historically significant the team, the higher the price tag.

The showstopper of our visit to the shop was a player-issue Republic of Ireland shirt from the 1990/1992 era.

Picture it: the Green colour, the Opel sponsor, the Adidas crest – if you wanted to pretend you were dressed like David O’Leary tucking away that penalty against Romania, you’d better have €600 to spare.

For Manchester United fans of a certain age (and indeed, football fans of any age), there is also the undeniable, aura-generating 1993 era Manchester United shirt adorned with Cantona on the back.

Want to look like the coolest man to have ever kicked a football? That will be €420, with strict instructions to hand wash it at a low temperature only.

Befitting of the Dublin city centre location, Ireland was well represented; downstairs, there were plenty of Ireland shirts from the 2002 World Cup for sale, at the more (relatively) reasonable price of €120.

Duff and Keane were the most popular names on the back of the shirts, while their international teammate and fellow Dubliner, Richard Dunne, also had a shirt of his own on display.

This might surprise some readers, but Manchester City used to struggle (and we don’t mean finishing third or not winning a trophy).

Prior to the 2008 takeover, cult heroes like Paul Dickov, Shaun Goater and Richard Dunne used to line out for the blue half of Manchester.

Underappreciated in his time, it will now cost you €240 to wear the same shirt Goater wore in the 2000/2001 season, and €150 is enough to buy the same kind of shirt that Richard Dunne wore in the 2006/2007 season.

To our pleasant surprise, there were plenty of old-school League of Ireland shirts available for purchase in the shop; the short-lived Dublin City FC were present and accounted for on the racks, with their shirts on sale.

Even more niche was a 2009-era Tolka Rovers shirt on sale for around €55.

Ireland’s affinity for Celtic is also available for purchase: plenty of Henrik Larsson era shirts are available to buy, but a mid-1990s Celtic training jacket caught our eye (and not least because it cost €300).

It is a commentary on English football’s popularity in Ireland that the first thing you see walking into the shop is Arsenal’s brand-new home shirt, whereas Ireland’s domestic football history is relegated to a rack downstairs.

It could be a case that English football has had more time to seep into Irish culture than domestic Irish football (the average League of Ireland attendance in the 2006 season stood at 1,562, compared to 3,861 in 2026), but it is an interesting discussion point.

The shop lures you in with the millennial-coded superstars like Ronaldinho, Roy Keane and Michael Owen, and it invites you to go deeper into the lair and really engage with football history.

For people who think they know their football, a visit to this shop might humble you about how much you might actually know.

And indeed, the shop might be the only place in Ireland that is selling a top belonging to Mexican side Pumas or Japanese top-flight team Kashima Antlers.

As noted, there is an upstairs and downstairs; the first floor is all the heavy hitters and the big stars (you’ll be greeted with Zidane, Beckham and friends), but downstairs is where the goodies can be found.

There is a specific section for vintage Manchester United and Liverpool shirts; to our surprise, the 2002/2003 Manchester United shirt that this journalist wore as a child is now available for €210.

Before the Luis Suarez and Mo Salah eras, Fernando Torres was the top dog for Liverpool – you can picture the long, flowing blonde locks as you look at his 2007-era shirt reflecting a €175 price tag back at you.

The best part of the shop is the variety of international shirts – you can pick up a Barcelona shirt, a Juventus shirt, or a Bayern Munich top just as easily as you could find a vintage Sheffield Wednesday one.

For those who want to leave it to chance, there is the option to buy a mystery box either in store or online, and for those with a bit of a budget but not tycoon money, you can pick up a lovely book detailing the history of classic football shirt designs.

We spent an hour in the shop, mainlining football nostalgia, while Foo Fighters, White Stripes and Linkin Park played over the speakers.

Spending time in the shop is like being sandblasted by 2000s-era Sky Sports, and frankly, we wouldn’t want it any other way.

A little tip; you might be sitting on a nice payday and not even know it.

The Classic Football Shirts website has a tab where you can detail the vintage shirt you have in your possession.

Fill in a few details, wait for a response, and your Ji-Sung Park shirt from the 2005 season could be paying for your football weekend in Europe.