My Story

My obsession with football shirts started just after Covid. With ADHD and Autism, when I get into something — I really get into it. It began with collecting my team’s shirts, Swindon Town, and it quickly became an addiction. The history, the nostalgia, the memories stitched into every badge — I couldn’t get enough.

Then came the turning point: fourteen Swindon shirts, all needing new Nationwide sponsors. It cost me an arm and a leg, and my brain went, “There has to be a better way… I’ll have a go myself.”

That moment kicked off everything that became OJ’s Football Shirt Restorations. It started from home — just me, a small setup, and a determination to learn. I made mistakes (plenty), spent hours researching, experimenting, ruining shirts, fixing them again, and quietly getting better. Over time, I turned obsession into craft.

By early 2024, I decided to make it official — the name, the brand, the black and gold identity — and it’s grown from there. Still a one-man operation, but now a recognised name in the restoration scene.

What drives me is simple: seeing something broken become wearable again. The nostalgia of a classic sponsor reattached. The satisfaction of a faded shirt revived. It’s sustainable, it’s rewarding, and it genuinely scratches that itch in my brain to create, restore, and help.

One standout moment? Restoring Wrexham AFC captain Ben Tozer’s debut Swindon shirt from 2007 — it arrived a total mess, but became one of my proudest pieces yet.

Every shirt that passes through my hands means something to someone — memories of goals, heroes, or whole eras of football. My job is to bring those memories back to life. When a customer opens their parcel, I want them to feel that buzz all over again — the same feeling as when they first wore it.

That’s what this is all about: giving forgotten shirts a second life, and helping the stories behind them live on.