Martijn van Zijtveld is a Dutch football commentator. As day jobs go, it’s not a bad one. He’s become a familiar face (and voice) in the Netherlands, having worked with some of the biggest broadcasters in the country, including ESPN, Veronica TV and Ziggo Sport.
When he’s not commentating on football matches, he’s collecting shirts. Martijn is what you’d call a collector’s collector. He’s got the grails, sure, but it’s the volume, depth and personality of his collection that really make it stand out.
For the past six months or so, Martijn has been uploading his collection to the Showboat App, our football shirt collector app. Among the thousands of collections now on the platform, his is undoubtedly one of the very best.
So we thought we’d sit down with the man himself and delve a little deeper into the collection, the stories behind it, and why football shirts continue to fascinate him.
Hi Martijn. First tell us about your background in football and how you fell in love with the game itself?
I’ve been in love with football for as long as I can remember. Which is strange I guess because my parents were never really into football. I started playing myself at a very early age, probably when I was around five or six years old. That unexplainable love never went away and it only grew stronger. I used to listen to radio reports and make my own little match reports when I was a kid. I remember watching matches of the 1994 FIFA World Cup late at night or in the early morning. I watched the Dutch league every week, and also started to get really into the Premier League in the late 90’s when it was still available on free-to-air tv. That’s where my love took a turn for Arsenal, watching Bergkamp, Henry and the other Invincibles. Although I did have a brief but intense affair with Barcelona and Ronaldinho at some point, Arsenal is my one true love until today. I’m lucky enough to have turned my hobby into my profession. First as an editor for summaries, now as a football commentator for ESPN in The Netherlands. If I can get my excitement and love for the game across to the people watching the match then I’m happy.
Do you remember the first shirt you owned and some of the shirts from your childhood?
I must have started to wear football shirts around the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. That’s probably why nowadays shirts from this era can still really grab my attention. I don’t remember precisely the first shirt I owned, but I do remember being over the moon with an AS Roma shirt with Cafu on the back that I picked up on a school trip to Rome. That must have been when I was about 16 years old (2001). On summer holidays in Spain I used to buy a lot of shirts. A Ronaldinho Brazil shirt, Eto’o and M’boma Cameroon shirts, and a whole range of Arsenal shirts come to mind. I’m pretty sure they were all ‘Spanish market quality’ if you know what I mean. But when playing football myself I ‘became’ the player I was wearing. When I was wearing Ronaldinho I was playful, when I was wearing Iniesta I was into giving beautiful passes, and when I had a shirt with Zlatan on the back I was the cool, serious goalscorer.
When did shirt collecting become something you were conscious of?
Yeah once you fall in love with the colours, the players, the polyester it’s hard to not keep trying to find new shirts. When I was studying in Amsterdam I used to pass by a vintage clothing store on my way to class. Bij Ons Vintage on the Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal, which 20 years later is actually still there I see now. They used to have a large round rack of football shirts in plain sight. Maybe even outside on the street. I will never forget finding an original Arsenal ‘Bruised Banana’ (1991-1993 away shirt) there for 12 euros. After looking it up online and seeing that it was going for 250 or 300 euros on eBay, I must have realized that collecting shirts can also be something valuable besides being a lot of fun. That place and the shirts I found there got me into collecting big time. It didn’t take long for the football shirts to disappear from that vintage store (and many others) after more people realized the value.
What does collecting mean to you now as you’ve gotten a little older?
On the one hand collecting shirts becomes probably a bit more serious when you’re getting older. It’s more about building value, investing and in my case also some downsizing. I used to buy as many football shirts as I could afford. Because ten years ago it was simply more affordable. So at some point I had a lot of ‘cheaper’ shirts that nowadays don’t do much for me. I’m slowly swapping or selling them to build a more personalized collection. That’s also part of the whole ‘football shirt collecting inflation’ of the past five or ten years. But on the other hand I firmly believe (or hope) that this childlike love for the colors, teams and players still has a big influence. Probably in a more nostalgic way. I can still stare for a very long time at a shirt from the 1994 World Cup and think ‘what a tournament that was’ or ‘what a player that was’.
Tell me about the five shirts that mean the most to you in your collection and something about each one…
1. Arsenal 1991-1993 Away (The Bruised Banana)
This shirt represents a lot, if not everything, of what I just told you about my background in football and football shirts. I picked it up for 12 euros in a vintage store at a time when this was still possible. It’s one of the most famous shirts of the club that I love, even though it’s from before my ‘conscious’ Arsenal period. I can safely admit that I have a fetish for weird, bold or as some would say ugly football shirts. This shirt is high on all of those lists. It’s the peak shirt of the new era of bold 90’s shirts and also one of the most collectible Arsenal shirts. So everything about shirt collecting comes together in this one for me.
2 . USA 1994 Away
The 1994 FIFA World Cup is one of my first active memories around football and this shirt is one of the most striking kits of the tournament. I turned 9 that summer and I think I was allowed to stay up a little later than usual to watch matches, or was recording them overnight on VHS to watch back in the morning. Ah, the good times. It didn’t stop there because later I also had a VHS with all the official highlights of the tournament. I must have watched it a thousand times, reenacting matches in my living room. One of the first matches on there (I still have a digital copy) is USA in this shirt against Switzerland. The American players thought they were being pranked when they first saw it, but FIFA assigned it as the designated kit so they even had to wear it in all three group stage games. I also love the story about the star pattern being created by using a Xerox copy machine.It screams World Cup, USA, Alexi Lalas, 90’s…it’s beautiful.
3 . Netherlands 1998 Away #8 Bergkamp (Match Issued)
There are always a few players that make you fall in love with the game. For me those were Ronaldinho and Thierry Henry, but my first and strongest ‘player crush’ was definitely on Dennis Bergkamp. Apart from Arsenal I was always very fanatic about the Euros and World Cups with the Netherlands. So you can imagine what happened in 1998, when Dennis Bergkamp scored with one of his artworks in the 90th minute of the quarterfinal against Argentina. That game, that player and that tournament grabbed a special place in my memory. So when years later I got the chance to buy a match issued shirt of Bergkamp at that same tournament, I couldn’t resist. The Netherlands only wore the away kit against Belgium, and Dennis was wearing short sleeves in that match. This long sleeve shirt was prepared in case he decided to wear it, but he never did. It must also be one of the first shirts with ‘tournament details’, the predecessor of the match details you nowadays see on almost every national team shirt.
4 . Arsenal 2007-08 Away #43 Barazite (Signed & Worn)
It’s not easy for an overseas Arsenal collector to get a hand on Arsenal match shirts, let alone signed ones. That’s why I’m so proud to have this one. Barazite is not at all a famous Arsenal player since he only played 3 League Cup games for us, but he’s born in The Netherlands and the shirt is confirmed to have been worn during the Carling Cup 4th Round in October 2007 against Sheffield United. Besides that it’s also just a beautiful, longsleeve Arsenal shirt.
5 - Cultural Leonesa 2014-15 Third ‘Tuxedo’ Shirt
I love weird shirts. Just browse through my collection on Showboat and you’ll see what I mean by that. There was a certain period (roughly between 2013 and 2020) when a lot of Spanish lower tier teams were producing insane kits, and I wanted all of them. From beer-shirts to shirts with beans or tomatoes. And this kind of famous Cultural Leonesa ‘tuxedo’ shirt of the 2014-15 season is also one of them. For me it represents both this crazy era of Spanish lower league shirts as well as a type of shirt that you can easily wear casually as a fashion item. It will not replace your official smoking at a wedding though.
How important is it for you to have these shirts and something tangible you can hold in a digital world?
Oh that’s massively important. Nothing beats the feel, smell and sight of a shirt up close and personal. No matter how good a picture or a video is, it will never do a football shirt justice in all its glory. I love how I can come across a random shirt in my collection, take it out of the box or closet, and fall in love with it all over again.
And finally, tell us about the process of uploading your collection into Showboat and how you’ve found that?
Once I saw and opened Showboat for the first time I knew it might be the perfect app for me. Like many collectors I was doing something similar already in Excel or with an online tool, but the Showboat app made it a lot easier, extensive and above all aesthetically pleasing. Which is important when you’re into shirts I guess. I love the statistics about manufacturers, valuation and random fun facts. I do have to say that with the number of shirts in my collection it was not an easy task uploading it all manually haha. But now that it’s in there it is the perfect catalogue right in my pocket. Because we’ve mentioned how important it is to have something tangible these days. But you can only carry your collection with you digitally I guess!
Thanks Martijn!
You can browse Martijn's collection in the spotlight section of the Showboat app.
