By the end of September, Hull City had played nine games in the Championship, lost just one of them and things were looking pretty rosy (if you’ll pardon the pun) in fifth place in the table.

But hey, we’re not here to discuss the first team’s performance (and that bloke a few rows of seats behind you who constantly growls something about ‘tippy tappy stuff’ while his body builds towards a massive coronary has that covered), we’re here to review the best Hull City paraphernalia that went under the virtual hammer in month. (Writes Mike Carter)…

We start, as always with the match-worn/player-spec shirts and September was kinder to us than previous months have been to collectors of used mens clothing, with five sales for us to cast our kit geeky eyes over. Firstly, we’ll start in 2005/06 with this Diadora home shirt worn by Nick Barmby purportedly against Sheffield United. This shirt was listed along with some other match spec Hull City shirts (they’re yet to sell if you fancy a nosey) at what we consider to be a bargain price of £99.99. A steal, right…

Next up is a 2010/11 away shirt by adidas, that was believed to be issued to Matty Fryatt. The shirt itself is an XL, which does add an element of doubt, but during this period it wasn’t uncommon for shirts to be printed up, even if the size wasn’t the correct one. It has the ‘Neil Hudgell’ sponsor patch applied, that wasn’t printed on club shop replicas. This is another shirt listed as a buy it now at £99.99 which sold in September.

The ability to check sold listings on Facebook marketplace is now live, meaning we can cover shirts sold over there too. This 2011/12 home shirt worn by Slovenian talisman Robert Koren sold after being listed at £100.

Ahmed Elmohamady will always be remembered for his dance moves during the 2012/13 promotion celebrations, after he’d had a strong campaign with the Tigers. Therefore, it came as a shock to me that this 2012/13 home shirt by adidas, worn by Ahmed only sold for just £78. This could be down to the fact that every collector should already have a match-worn Elmo shirt. This shirt would have made a perfect platform to build a collection off for any new collectors.

Now, we have a right bargain! This 2013/14 home shirt, also by adidas and issued to Aaron McLean sold for just £26! The initial listing had this item finish at £38. Here at HCK we received a ‘second chance offer’ to buy the shirt moments after the listing had ended, but that offer didn’t last long before being cancelled, and the shirt relisted! Shortly after the second auction finished even lower at £26. Wow!

The fifth and final players’ shirt was this 2021/22 home shirt by Umbro, that was match-worn by Ryan Longman against Fulham. Originally this shirt was sold via matchwornshirt.com for £162. These shirts were auctioned for the Tigers Trust, after the shirts had their branding applied, in the usual sponsor occupied by Giacom in 2021/22. Upon its resale, the shirt sold for £203 after 35 bids pushed the shirt beyond its original sale price. It is very rare that a shirt sold during a charity auction will sell for more the second time around, but on this occasion it did.

Now we swiftly move into the replica section of Auction Action, which leads us into this 1998/99 home shirt by Olympic Sports in XL. This shirt is remembered fondly for its representation in the great escape season. One bid at the start price of £119.99 was enough to secure this shirt a new home.

Next up we have a pair of shirts from the 2001/02 season. The first is a home shirt in Large that was listed at £49.99, but sold using the best offer feature. The other is a 2001/02 away shirt, that also sold using the best offer feature. The away shirt was listed initially at £30.

The 2021/22 third shirt by Umbro was one of the shirts in a long line of consistently good third shirts the Tigers had during their second stint with Umbro. This one in size XXL sold for £29.99, a reasonable price for a third shirt at resale.

We found this next listing very interesting, we considered that it could have been player specification, but settled on classing it as a printed replica. It is a 2006/07 Goalkeeper shirt printed with the name Duke. It has also been signed by the squad of the first Premier League stint. The listing ended for £31.01, a quasi-reasonable price for what for it is, in our opinion.

This framed 2009/10 home shirt by Umbro, printed with Geovanni 10 sold for £87. In terms of cost, this is probably cheap. Most framing companies would charge this alone for the framing service, let alone the cost/value of the shirt. It is however common knowledge that you lose value on shirt framing, as most of the cost goes towards the labour. Anyway, a solid find if you’re into framing your shirts.

This is another shirt that we wrestled with the notion of it being player issued. This 2009/10 home shirt printed with the full name of (Jan) Vennegoor of Hesselink printed around his squad number. It was listed at £150 and appears to be won by using the best offer feature. The seller’s other listings are why we believe this is likely not player issued or worn…

Keeping on the theme of player printed shirts, next up is this 2016/17 home shirt by Umbro printed with Jake Livermore’s name and number. The sale price was approximately £58.08 due to being sold internationally.

Our penultimate is this long sleeved 2020/21 home shirt, printed with Malik Wilks name and number. An offer, likely to be around £30 was made to secure this shirt.

Finally, we have this Lewis-Potter printed 2020/21 away shirt that sold for £35. A lovely shirt that we have seen hold quite a bit of its value since its initial release.

That’s it for September, check back after Halloween for October’s edition of Auction Action!