The kit man: twenty-six years, never a missed home game
Twenty-two shirts, forty-four socks and a can of the same drink on every seat. Saturdays with Derek Pollard.
Every Saturday, Derek Pollard arrives at Riverside Park at 8 a.m. He lays out twenty-two shirts, twenty-two pairs of shorts, forty-four socks, the warm-up tops, the training bibs, the water bottles and a bag of spare boot studs. He has done it for twenty-six years. He has never missed a home game.
The routine
Derek is the kit man at Riverside Rovers. It is a part-time, low-paid job, and he does it for love. During the week, he works as a postman. On match days, he is the first person in and the last person out.
His routine never changes. Shirts are hung in shirt-number order, with the captain's armband on number 4's peg. Each player's boots are cleaned, dried and placed under their seat. Before the game, he puts a can of the same drink on each seat, because the striker who scored the club's most famous goal asked for it once in 2003 and nobody has dared stop since.
The away days
Away games are harder. Derek packs the kit into a van on Friday night: three large bags of shirts, a box of medical supplies, a bucket of footballs, an emergency sewing kit. Once, at Castleford, the home team's colours clashed and the referee asked Rovers to change. Derek had the second kit in the van. He always does.
The players think the shirts appear by magic. That is how it should be.
Derek Pollard
The washing
After a home game, the kit goes into the club's two old washing machines, which Derek knows like old friends. Muddy shirts need a pre-soak. White shorts need a separate wash. Socks go in a net bag, because socks disappear. In winter, the kit can take until midnight to dry.
The players
The players adore him. He knows which ones need extra socks, which ones forget their shin pads, which ones need a quiet word before a big game. When the club won the league cup in 2019, the captain gave his medal to Derek.
"I gave it back," Derek says. "It's his. I just kept the shirt."
The things nobody sees
Derek's job includes many things that are not on any list. He keeps a box of spare shin pads, because somebody always forgets. He has a drawer of old shirts in every size for players on trial. He sews numbers back on when they come off, usually at half-time, usually in a hurry. He knows which referee likes a cup of tea before the game and which one prefers coffee.
He also keeps a notebook of every shirt number every player has worn since 1999. When a former player visits, Derek can tell him what number he wore in his first game. "They always look surprised," he says. "I don't know why. It's my job to remember."
I have seen eleven managers and four hundred players. The shirts are the same.
Derek Pollard
The future
Derek is sixty-one. He says he will stop when he cannot carry the bags any more. "I'll know," he says. "The bags will tell me." Until then, every Saturday at 8 a.m., the lights in the dressing room will be on.
