Case Study: Lower Hutt City AFC

A custom-made football kit is taking a well-known Wellington football club back in time and bringing its 100-year history to life.

Lower Hutt City AFC teamed up with Football Central to replicate the look of the club’s original kit from the 1920s for its centenary year. To be worn by the club’s senior and U-17 teams during the 2021 season, the unique saddle-stitch, lace-up jersey pays homage to the original strip of yesteryear.

One of Wellington’s best-known clubs

Lower Hutt City AFC is one of Wellington’s premier clubs, with more than 850 members and over 20 teams playing at all levels of the beautiful game.

Six senior men’s and women’s teams and 15 junior teams are based in a sports hub at Fraser Park, Lower Hutt's largest recreational sports ground. Lower Hutt City’s first team competes in the Central League and the club is also home to the training academy of New Zealand’s only fully professional football side, the Wellington Phoenix.

Sam Sutton, who plays as a midfielder for Wellington Phoenix in the A-League, came through the Wellington Phoenix Academy while it was at Lower Hutt City. Team Wellington captain Scott Basalaj and striker Hamish Watson are also well-known products of the club.

Celebrating 100 years of history

The 2021 season will be Lower Hutt City’s centenary year. It all started in 1921, when boys from the Hutt Young Men’s Institute decided to form what they called The Lower Hutt Football Club. The club merged with the nearby Railways club in 1967 to become Lower Hutt City AFC.

Lower Hutt City AFC treasurer Mike Yates said 2021 was shaping up to be a big year for the club as it celebrates 100 years of history.

“The centenary is a huge deal. Our celebrations will include football matches across all three days of Queen’s Birthday Weekend and we will also hold an Old-Timers’ Day during that weekend, along with a formal dinner,” Yates said.

To ensure the club’s history was on show across Wellington, the club decided to enlist the help of Football Central to create a special centenary kit that would bring its personality and heritage to life.

Stitching together the old and new

History repeats with the centenary kit, which sports the club’s original maroon and white team colours and replicates the look of the 1920s uniform.

To bring the past and present together, the unique kit uses sublimated stitching which pays homage to the older style of shirts, while making them lightweight and a dream to wear.

“The daughter of a player from the 1920s sent us an original shirt worn by the team that her father played in from 1926, we wanted to match this centenary strip as closely possible to that shirt, and we are happy with the results” Yates said.

The centenary kits have no sponsors on them in tribute to the original strip. They also carry the club’s traditional logo – a footballer and softballer together on a crest – in honour of the Railways club formed by footballers and softballers working the Hutt Railways Workshops during WW2.

“It’s a traditional coat of arms in many ways, but we have tidied up the text slightly to make it more legible,” Yates said.

He said Football Central owner Richard Mowbray had helped the football club create a custom-made uniform that incorporated its history.

“Richard has been very patient – sometimes the committee has gone back and forth to make decisions. He knows football, he is local and he understands what’s involved in the day to day running of a club,” Yates said.

The centenary strip will be used by the club’s senior teams as their primary home strip this year. Next year, some of the teams will use the kit for away games, while other teams would make the kit available for purchase by players who want to take a slice of the club’s history home with them.