Written by Mike Carter, Hull KR Shirts
Last January, for the first time, I created a ‘Year In Review’ article looking back at 2023. I thought this could be a good way to monitor the progress that the Hull KR Shirts platform is making year on year. As in 2023, the feel-good factor that encapsulated Craven Park stuck around in 2024, and that has rubbed off kindly on myself and what I have created with Hull KR Shirts…
In the calendar year of 2024, hullkrshirts.co.uk was viewed by 8,212 unique visitors, which was slightly down on the 8,745 people who visited the website in 2023. However, those who visited looked at more pages and posts on the website than the 12 months prior. The total number of page views in 2024 was a humbling 19,627, a whopping 22% increase on 2023, which when you take into account the 4,500 post views that my preview of the Marble Alternate kit had (which wasn’t replicated in 2024), it is simply incredible. It was my aim to beat the 2023 total, but I honestly didn’t see a way that it could be topped, but somehow, we have managed it! Thank you!
TwitterX is still our most popular platform, closely followed by facebook, then Instagram. We launched over on Threads in 2023, and in 2024, we joined TikTok and Bluesky, so feel free to join in the conversation over there if you haven’t already. I will be trying to improve my follower base on Instagram in 2025, so if you’re not following Hull KR Shirts over there, check us out now!
YouTube: Talking Shirts
Hull KR Shirts YouTube channel continues to grow. We started the year on 158 subscribers, which was 31 more than 01/01/2023, and ended the year on 196, meaning 38 new accounts have joined the party for the fortnightly episodes of Talking Shirts and new YouTube shorts which I hope to develop more of in 2025. The channel amassed 12,838 views during 2024, across the 197 videos (including special editions and shorts) available to stream. We started the year with a total of 14,889 views since late 2019, so we ended it on 27,727.
The most viewed episode of Talking Shirts in 2024 was episode 99, featuring a 1979/80 featuring a shirt that might have been worn by Roger Millward. This was closely followed by a Special Edition of Talking Shirts in which I took a look at the 2024/25 Hull KR Foundation Wheelchair RL shirt that would be worn by Alan Sheriff. Once again, I would just like to thank Alan for loaning me the shirt to cover!
There was also a ‘comedy’ special edition of Talking Shirts in 2024, comparing episode number one and episode number 100. I created it to show myself the improvement that I had made producing the videos in the 4+ years I have been making them. I think it is easy to not see the progress you make, and this really highlighted to me how well things have developed.
2025 Hull KR Shirts Calendar
The success of the 2024 Hull KR Shirts calendar got me thinking nice and early ahead of 2025. I wanted to be in a position where I could plan it properly and hoped to capitalise on the interest that had been present 12 months prior. I decided to sell the calendars ahead of time by placing them up for pre-order. I didn’t know how people would feel about this, and I did miss out on some of the early interest by doing it this way, but financially, it made the most sense. In the end, I placed an order for 51 calendars, which is over double that were processed a year earlier. Once again, I’d just like to thank everyone who bought a calendar. It is greatly appreciated. I hope you enjoy your journey through time as each month passes by!
How’s the shirt collecting going?
I started 2024 with 164 player shirts in my collection, which I genuinely thought was ludicrous, so 12 months on I’m not sure how to describe it, now that my collection is sitting at 189 player shirts, and counting! The depth of the collection is good, but it is now a case of trying to find things that I haven’t got, which is a tough task, as you can imagine. The 1990s are quite ‘gappy’ for me, so any finds from that era in 2025 would be wonderful.
Picking up a 2024 Grand Final spare shirt is something that I am over the moon about. Getting a match-worn representation will be incredibly hard. Shirts like those should remain with the players and their families, so the next best thing for me is a spare shirt, and that is exactly what I have. You may have seen it already, but you will get a close-up look at it in episode 125 of Talking Shirts on the 7th of February!
As always, I would like to thank Steve of Steve Leaming Plant, Andrea & Andrew of White Oak Cottage, and the team at Hull KR for their support throughout 2024. Everything you all do for me is greatly appreciated. Thank you so much!!
I had the aim in 2024 of finding some match shirts of players who had so far escaped the current Hull KR Shirts collection, and while I was unsuccessful in my search for a (reasonably priced) shirt worn by Danny McGuire, Josh Mantellato and Josh Hodgson, I was fortunate enough to pick up a match-worn shirt by Clint Newton (Thanks Rob!). If I can tick off another one of those in 2025, I will be a very happy chappy!
Another highlight that came during 2024 was my first joint exhibition with Mark Charlton of Hull FC Shirts ahead of the third Hull Derby of the season in July. Myself and Mark had the opportunity to create a display at the MKM Stadium to generate kit talk with supporters from both sides of the city. This was really enjoyable and something that I will be doing again VERY soon….
What does 2025 look like for Hull KR Shirts?
I suppose the best place to start is by trying to duplicate the success of the website. We fell just shy of 20,000 page views in 2024, so more articles and website features will be created and shared for your enjoyment in the hope of breaking that record. It seems (highly) likely that my player shirt collection will surpass 200, with us sitting just 11 shirts shy as we enter 2025. That should be an easy aim to achieve… As previously mentioned, I would like to find a couple of shirts from the 90s. The 1991-94 period is scarce for me, so filling those gaps would be huge and something that I’d love to achieve this year.
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I closed the 2023 edition of this article with a motto, and I would like to do that again as a timely reminder to myself, as I think it is important to refresh yourself on your own values from time to time, ‘Don’t spend time worrying about what don’t you have, spend that time looking after what you do have’. I love my collection and everything that I have built up around it. I enjoy just going into my memorabilia room and taking it all in. That is something that I will continue to do in 2025 and beyond.
Up The Robins!
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