Teresa and David Hales
Well – what a journey we have had since reforming as AFC R&D CBS in 2011, starting off at Kiln Park with an under-18 side then with a senior team at the Dog and Duck and now presently at Hayden Road, journeying afield as far as Moneyfields and Ashington.
Kit washes now totalling 650 after the Stourbridge game, approximately 10 washes per kit.
In the early days we were washing kits for the first team and under-18s at the same time.
We start getting the kit out the day before a game, especially in the winter so the kit is at room temperature, and checking we have it all ready before loading it on the day (oops – must remember to charge the subs board before departing). We then attempt to reach our destination around midday on a Saturday or 5:00 pm for a mid-week game.
After locating the changing rooms… (there are certainly a lot of different types of changing rooms to cope with – two come to mind with one being infested with flies, two cans of fly killer later and not being able to breathe for an hour before sweeping a floor completely covered with dead insects; the other had foliage growing through the walls on the inside of the changing room. There are other changing rooms that you would suggest as having character!)… the kit is set out for each player usually in numerical order. We attempt to set the kit colours before the start of the season – this means searching through websites and league literature and we adapt our colours for wherever we play – usually our White Kit at home and Second or Third Kit and sometimes our White Kit away. On the odd occasion we have mixed two kits so there is no colour clash, i.e. Yellow shirts with Royal blue shorts or all White.
After a game the kit is sorted into laundry bins before taking it all home for cleaning, a quick sweep and tidy up to the changing rooms before departing for home and hoping no road closures when away from home.
When at home the kit is sorted into shirts, socks, shorts, warm up tops, sweat shirts, bench tops/trousers and coats, then divided into piles of good-bad and OMG (usually more than one wash to get clean).
After drying the kit it is then aired before being folded and repacked ready for the next game.
Ah well – must dash, got a few match balls to retrieve from conifers…
