Written by Mike Carter, Hull KR Shirts
Hull KR and MatchWornShirt (MWS) teamed up for the first time in 2024, with Dutch-based MWS joining the party ahead of the inaugural Amsterdam Challenge as a club partner. As part of the partnership, the playing shirts worn by the Robins against York RLFC Knights would be auctioned off on their website/app, with the shirt auctions starting at kick-off and eventually finishing on Saturday 7th, February at 12:00PM UK time – 2 weeks on from the meeting with the Knights. MWS are one of the biggest digital auction websites in the world with top sports clubs and competitions using their service.
As part of the MWS process, there are a few things which I personally didn’t find too user-friendly. Firstly, the things which irked me the most were the fact that VAT isn’t included within your bid price, it isn’t until you place your bid that a little ‘warning’ is displayed. Also, MWS add a 10% “buyers premium” to each shirt, too. I would have liked to have these would have been covered by the club in their agreement with MWS and not paid by the supporters who are already paying a premium price. Granted with MWS being a Dutch company, it is possible that they operate differently to that which we would expect in the UK. On top of this, MWS then stipulate how big the incremental bidding is. Some values were only £4. However, some reached the point of beating £9 and over. Why can’t I bid £1 more than the highest bidder?
Another feature of MWS is that if a bid is received within the final three minutes of an auction, they add a further three minutes to encourage a ‘bidding war’ over the shirt. Just one of the shirts had this happen as a late bid came in for the #12 shirt worn by Leon Ruan, a shirt that I was ‘winning’ until that point.
I did see a comment made online regarding a raffle organised by the club for the shirts, to reach more supporters who are possibly unable to reach the values that these shirts sold for, however they could have bought a ticket for £5-£10 to be in with a lottery chance of winning a piece of memorabilia.
Anyway, that’s enough of the negative, let’s focus on the positives. The auctions opened up the opportunity for supporters to get their hands on a 2025 player specification, just as the season kicks off – this is the first time this has ever happened!
The game featured a host of young Robins, with just half of the players acquiring a heritage number for making a professional first-team appearance.
The shirts featured squad numbers in red on the reverse, but these didn’t reflect the player’s squad numbers for the 2025 season. The only omission was the number 6, which was clearly being saved for Mikey Lewis and his first appearance since the 2024 Super League Grand Final.
Specially designed Amsterdam Challenge 2025 competition patches featured on both sleeves and was a nice addition to commemorate the occasion. Sadly, there were no game details applied to the shirt. It would have been nice if the shirts had chest embroidery. I think this would have made the shirts more sought-after and increased the appeal of the shirts.
The values were going to cover next highlight the winning bid price and do not factor in MWS additional fees.
The player whose shirt sold for the highest value was Zack Fishwick, who played at loose forward and wore number #13. The young forward is yet to make a first-team appearance since the 16-man derby of 2022 saw his shirt sell for £150.
Next up was another local lad, Leo Tennison who was the scorer of the Robins’ second try. His number #16 shirt closely followed that of ZF’s and finished at £148.
A further three shirts broke the £100 marker, with a few more falling just short. Those shirts were worn by Kelepi Tanginoa (#11), the Robin with the most first-team appearances to his name with 30. His shirt sold for a bid of £136. Next followed utility man Jack Broadbent, who has been excellent since his 2024 mid-season arrival from Castleford Tigers. Broadbent played full-back in the Netherlands and his shirt number #1 shirt sold for £115.
The final shirt to command a three-figure bid was that worn by stand-in skipper Jack Brown (#10). Brown was a starting prop and delivered an excellent performance at the NRCA Stadium. Shirts worn by Danny Richardson (#7) and Eribe Doro (#8) sold for £97 and £95 respectively. Richardson converted both of the Robins’ tries in the first half, and Doro delivered an aggressive performance, which did see him spend 10 minutes in the sin bin.
Hull KR’s first try of the afternoon was scored by Louix Gorman, as the centre raced away to dot down under the sticks. His #4 shirt sold for a bid price of £87 when the virtual hammer hit. This was a shirt that I very nearly got caught in a ‘bidding war’ for, but I turned my attention elsewhere.
We got our first opportunity to see Bill Leyland (#9) and Lee Kershaw (#5) in Hull KR colours during the Amsterdam Challenge and their shirts sold for bids of £70 and £69. Phoenix Laulu-Togaga’e’s #21 shirt received a top bid of £68, with Leon Ruan (#12) the only player to have a bid on their shirt in the final 3 minutes sold for a bid price of £66.
The final 6 shirts from the auction sold for bids of £61 for Connor Barley (#3), £60 for Harvey Horne (#2), £56 for Freddie Watts (#20), £55 for Lennie Ellis (#14), £51 for AJ Wallace (#19) and Aaron Powell (#18) and finally, £48 for Neil Tchamambe (#17).
You may have noticed that the #15 wasn’t available. Well outside-back Luke Phoenix was due to play in the Amsterdam Challenge and was even named on the team sheet. However, Luke didn’t travel to the Dutch capital for the game.
As well as match-worn shirts, there was also the availability to bid on three signed Amsterdam Challenge 2025 balls! The auction didn’t state if these were match-used balls or not. Two sold for bids of £38 while the other finished at £41. These did appear just a few days before the end of the auctions, though. The total spend price for the playing shirts, just factoring in the winning bids was £1,583.
On 12th February, Hull KR confirmed on their social media channels that bidding had opened up on warm-up shirts and jackets. A total of 46 items were listed, including the short and long-sleeved warm-up shirts as well as the anthem jackets, and further two squad-signed balls. Both of the balls sold for significantly higher prices than three which originally went up as they sold for £123 and £61 respectfully.
Phoenix Laulu-Togaga’e’ short sleeved signed warm-up shirt was the most expensive clothing line in this second batch of auctions as it sold for £120 with Kelepi Tanginoa’s anthem jacket selling for £69 as the only other item to sell for over £50. The highest price for a long-sleeved warm-up shirt was the £48 that was paid for Tanginoa’s.
At the other end of the scale, there was plenty of bargains to be had with Arron Powell (£19) Connor Barley (£16) and AJ Wallace (£15) long-sleeved warm-up shirts all selling for under £20 each.
You may have noticed that the short-sleeved versions of the Amsterdam Challenge warm-up shirt don’t have the uniquely numbered jock tags which were exclusively numbered 1 to 500. I didn’t actually go for anything from this batch because other than the signatures, there isn’t anything that links each item to a player. If they’d had the players’ initials or squad number heat applied, then I think I would have been tempted. In fact, I wouldn’t have been tempted. I’d have bid for one of each item.
The sale prices of those 46 items, added to the shirts and balls sold in the first batch meant that the total sales valued paid for the items worn and issued to the playing squad for the 2025 Amsterdam Challenge was £3,230.
At the end of the auctions I was fortunate enough to have ‘won’ two of the match-worn shirts from the 2025 Amsterdam Challenge meaning I will be the proud owner of Lennie Ellis’ and Freddie Watts’ shirts when they arrive at Hull KR Shirts HQ in the coming days. If you managed to get one, let me know!
I would also like to say a huge thank you to Paul Whitehurst of PBW Media for the use of his images. You check out his Instagram account here and his TwitterX account here to cast you eye over his other excellent work.
Up the Robins!
If you want to check out any of the listings for yourself on MatchWornShirt, click here for the first batch (playing shirts) and here for the second batch (warm-up range).
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