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100 clubs to ditch their home shirts this Boxing Day for Shelter’s #NoHomeKit  

Posted 17 Dec 2021

Players, fans and the football world - from Sky Sports pundits Jeff Stelling and Chris Kamara to brands like PUMA and Mitre - all come together to fight homelessness 

In a footballing first, almost 100 clubs from across the English and Welsh leagues – including Portsmouth, Salford City, Sheffield United and Cardiff - have signed up to ditch their home shirts on Boxing Day for Shelter’s #NoHomeKit campaign.  

In the space of every 90-minute game, 25 households will become homeless in England. That means between the first and last whistle of any football match, 25 households will no longer have a safe or secure place to call home. These could be families with young children, a couple whose lives have been thrown upside down by a cancer diagnosis, or a young person kicked out to sleep on the freezing streets.   

With so many people in need of Shelter’s frontline services, the homeless charity is calling on as many football clubs and fans as possible to get involved and swap their home shirts for their away or third kits this Boxing Day, to show their support for everyone without a home today.  

Dale Vince, Chairman of Forest Green Rovers, said: "I’ve been homeless, I know what it’s like and so when Shelter asked if we’d support this brilliant campaign - you knew that we would.  Britain is one of the richest nations in the world, but tens of thousands of our people have nowhere to live - that’s wrong.  Changing the shirts we play in for one game is nothing, shame on the Premier League for preventing the top clubs from joining in." 

The charity is overwhelmed by the level of support it has received from the football community. Even though the Premier League blocked its clubs from taking part on the pitch, Tottenham Hotspur, Everton, Brighton and Hove Albion, Brentford and Watford have decided to throw their weight behind the campaign off the pitch. The teams, who have all been vocal supporters of Shelter’s #NoHomeKit, will be helping the charity through fundraising, matchday advertising and social media content.  

Portsmouth Football Club’s Chief Commercial Officer, Anna Mitchell, said: “We are proud to partner with Shelter and Oxford United to support the #NoHomeKit campaign on Boxing Day, to raise awareness for those who without a safe place to call home. We hope by wearing our Third kit for our Boxing Day fixture we will help raise awareness of the housing emergency in Portsmouth and the rest of the UK, especially over the festive season.” 

Sky Sports’ heroes Jeff Stelling and Chris Kamara have also lent their voices to the campaign - appearing in a heart-warming new advert for #NoHomeKit which sees fans and famous faces of the beautiful game trading in their team’s home colours for away and third kits on Boxing Day.  

The film will be shared by some of the biggest names in the game too, including the clubs ready to ditch their home kits. Shelter hopes this incredible reach will encourage even more people to support its frontline workers who are inundated with pleas for help from people who are homeless or about to be. Now that Covid protections such as the ‘Everyone In’ scheme and the eviction ban have gone, and living costs are shooting up, Shelter’s emergency helpline has been receiving 1,000 calls a day. 

Chris Kamara, pundit and former professional footballer, said: ”I got involved in this campaign after hearing some of the harrowing statistics concerning homelessness in this country - such as there being over 400 households made homeless every day. Something needs to change and I'm hoping this campaign can be the start of that.”   

Andrew Gordon, Head of Engagement, Salford City Football Club, said: ”We are very aware that figures for homelessness in both Salford and the surrounding areas are far from something to be proud of. And as such, we see it as our duty to engage in activity that helps to tackle this head on, including making homelessness a priority action area for our Club's charity, Foundation 92. With this in mind we are extremely proud to be engaging with and supporting Shelter's #NoHomeKit campaign, a simple yet effective initiative that we believe all fans and Clubs can get fully behind.” 

Osama Bhutta, Director of Campaigns at Shelter, said: “We’ve been overwhelmed by the support from across the football community for our #NoHomeKit campaign, and we want to say a massive thank you to everyone who gets stuck in to fight homelessness with us this Christmas. 

“In the space of a single 90-minute football match, 25 households will become homeless - many of them will be families with children. That’s why the work of our frontline advisers is so critical. Our emergency helpline is open 365 days a year, including on Christmas Day, so that no-one has to face homelessness alone. By ditching their home colours this Boxing Day, fans and players alike will be helping us to find safe and secure homes for people whose lives are on the line.”   

As well as wearing their away shirts on Boxing Day, fans can directly support Shelter’s frontline services donating £5 to the campaign by texting ’HOME’ to 70455, or by visiting www.shelter.org.uk/nohomekit. (Texts cost your standard network rate + £5, and Shelter receives 100% of your donation).  

Notes to editors:

Confirmed club support:  

  • 5 teams from the Premier League will be officially supporting the initiative (without changing their kit): Tottenham, Everton, Brighton and Hove Albion, Brentford & Watford  

  • 20 teams confirmed to participate across the EFL leagues (Cardiff, Coventry, Barnsley, Stoke, Preston, Sheffield United, Bournemouth, Portsmouth, Oxford, Ipswich, Carlisle, Tranmere, Barrow, Leyton Orient, Forest Green Rovers, Stevenage, Luton, Rochdale, Salford City, Derby, Oldham)  

  • Dozens of clubs are committed to participate across five leagues below the EFL (Vanarama National League, Northern Premier League, Southern League, Isthmian League and Cymru Premier).  

  • Plus, a sports team outside of football: the Bradford Bulls (rugby league team) will also be taking part.  

Support from brands: 

  • A collective of brands are officially supporting the initiative including: PUMA, Mitre, Football Manager, Classic Football Shirts, Umbro, Getir, Talksport, The Athletic 

 About the research: 

  • The number of households becoming homeless every 90 minutes is calculated from the number of households in England who approached their local authority and were found to be homeless and owed the relief duty from 1st July 2020 to 30th June 2021 (146,190). This is divided by the number of minutes in a year (525,600) to reach a per-minute rate of households becoming homeless. These figures are taken from DLUHC, Live tables on homelessness, Number of households owed a relief duty, Table A5R.