Written by Mike Carter, Hull KR Shirts
For the last few years now I have been trying to capture as much data as possible and publish it in article form. Things have been going from strength to strength for Hull KR Shirts and that coincides with the fortunes of Hull KR! You have to believe that the success that Hull KR are enduring on the field is having a positive effect on fan sites and forums alike, and Hull KR Shirts is no different! 2025 was well and truly the year of the Robin, with Hull KR collecting all three trophies available to them.
In the calendar year of 2025, hullkrshirts.co.uk was viewed by 10,469 unique visitors, which was up compared with the 8,212 people who visited the website in 2024. The total number of page views was also up on 2024 and this time by a mammoth 7,985, which is around 40% up, giving us a total of 27,612. Last January, I set myself the aim of finding a way to surpass 20K page views, and this is something I am very proud to achieve. I don’t quite know how I will do it, but the aim for 2026 has to be 30K, right?
There was a slight changing of the guard in 2025, as TwitterX is no longer our most popular social media platform. It has been overtaken by Facebook, as we now have over 2,300 followers on the META brand. We have cleaned up our Instagram account in 2025, and have been joined there by lots of new followers, too, but not enough to knock TwitterX out of the top two.
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.
YouTube: Talking Shirts
Hull KR Shirts YouTube channel continues to grow. We started 2025 with 196 subscribers, which was 38 more than the start of 2024, and we ended the year with 276, meaning 80 new accounts have followed us to enjoy shirt-related videos and shorts. Our shorts have been very successful in 2025, these range from shirts to pitch side and in the stands footage, which has been very popular during an amazing season. The channel amassed a whopping 49,4228 views during 2025, bearing in mind we started the year on 27,727 from the channel’s 5-year history, that is incredible. A lot of that is down to the shorts, but we have still recorded some really good numbers on episodes of Talking Shirts, too. We ended the year with 77,149 total views – the aim is to surpass 100,000 before the end of 2026.
The most viewed new episode of Talking Shirts in 2025 was Episode 134, featuring one of Mikey Lewis’ 2024 home shirts. This shirt was the one he took with him for the photoshoot after his Dream Team inclusion. In case you missed it, I have included the video below.
We’re currently on Episode 148 of Talking Shirts with EP149 due out on Friday 9th and EP150 released on Friday 23rd January. Both episodes will feature shirts at the opposite end of the spectrum in terms of their age. EP149 will feature a 2025 Betfred Challenge Cup Final spare shirt, which was issued to a pivotal player during our cup run, and EP150 will feature a 1964-72 away shirt which has been match-worn by David Wainwright! What a way to start the year – it is almost like it was planned that way…
2026 Hull KR Shirts Calendar
We’ve had a good little run with calendars for a few years now. I committed to creating a calendar when Hull KR decided to stop producing them – it gave me a good creative outlook and something for me to invest my passion in. However, after a bit of a hiatus, the club produced one for 2026, and after the year the club had, you can hardly blame them! I’m sorry if I caused anyone a conflict of interest here, but it was out of my hands.
After ordering 51 calendars for 2025, I placed an order of sixty 2026 calendars, so we saw a little uplift in interest 12 months on. I would just like to once again thank everyone who ordered a calendar – it isn’t about making money on them, but more about creating something that people can display and hopefully find useful. I do have a handful left if anyone would like to buy one.
How’s the shirt collecting going?
I started 2025 with 189 player shirts in my collection, so it felt inevitable that I would pass the 200 mark in 2025 and that was the case, and then some! I was fortunate enough to pick up a few bundles of shirts which have bulked up the number somewhat. The number is currently sitting at 226, but I am looking to trim some duplicates, so the overall number will drop before it goes up in 2026.
2025 was a truly magical year for Hull KR and with that come some excellent shirt opportunities. The players who played in the Challenge Cup Final and Super League Grand Final kept their shirts, and rightly so, so the best opportunities come in the form of match-issue spare shirts. I have been very lucky to get a spare shirt from Wembley and also a match-issue shirt from Old Trafford – both of these shirts feature in the 2026 Hull KR Shirts calendar and will feature in episodes of Talking Shirts in early 2026, too.
I have been on the lookout for some specific players’ shirts since I set up Hull KR Shirts. I mentioned these last year – Danny McGuire, Josh Mantellato and Josh Hodgson. I can confirm that I have been fortunate enough to pick up a Josh Hodgson shirt, allowing me to tick off another former player off my list of players that I am on the lookout for. After selling a shirt of Josh’s in 2019 due to being out of work, I am pleased to have that seller’s remorse evaporate. Woop!
Something else that was really exciting in 2025 was finding some early-mid 90s match-worn shirts. This has been an era which has eluded the collection, but I added 3 new shirts to the collection. Two of them have been featured on Talking Shirts in 2025, with the third one to come in the near future.
What does 2026 look like for Hull KR Shirts?
I have mentioned a few things already, but to achieve 30,000 views on the website would be amazing. So if you’ve a spare 10 minutes, have a look around and see what you can find. I am sure you’ll get lost in a bit of a rabbit hole, but it is a good waste of time! Next would be 100,000 views on YouTube. I put a lot of time into editing and filming content, so it is nice to see some visual reward for that – I have always said that I do it for an audience of one, and that is still true to this day, so just imagine how everything in here makes me feel!
I am getting to the stage now where I am running out of space, so I am going to set myself the target to NOT reach 250 match shirts. As bizarre as that sounds, I am intrigued to see if I can manage it. I want the collection to be focused around quality as much as quantity, so keep an eye out for some low-level, low-price match shirts being available soon!
I closed the 2023 and 2024 editions 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 2026 and beyond.
Once again I would like to place thanks on record to Andrea & Andrew of White Oak Cottage, Steve of Steve Leaming Plant, and the team at Hull KR for their support throughout 2025. They all provide support in ensuring that the quality of the content I produce is to a good standard.
Up The Robins!
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