by Dale Farrington
Club merchandise is now big business throughout the league, with clubs like Buriram Utd and Muang Thong Utd raking in millions by selling replica shirts, scarves, hats and much, much more. However, this hasn't always been the case.
When I first started watching football here, I was disappointed with the lack of goodies for sale. I had managed to buy a Thailand national team jersey outside Supachalasai before the World Cup qualifying match against South Korea in March, 1997, but I really had to work hard to find it - they were being sold out of cardboard boxes in a corner of the car park, away from the main entrance.
Twelve months later, when the Asian Games came to town, things had improved and souvenirs were plentiful and much easier to come by at international fixtures. Finding anything relating to local clubs, on the other hand...
Then in 2006, a small band of enterprising souls among the Chonburi faithful, came up with the novel idea of having their own scarves made. At this point, I don't think I'd even seen a scarf in Thailand, let alone at a football match. It was groundbreaking!
These pioneers found a local shop (for local people!) that was willing to hand produce them and then proceeded to take orders from the rest of us. It is to my eternal regret that I baulked at the THB500 asking price and didn't buy one. Imagine what they're worth now!
In the end, only about a dozen were made and were proudly held aloft at all subsequent matches (see photo), to the envy of opposition supporters. Within a year, and after seeing how popular these items were, the club had got wise and started to sell official ones - I did get one of those! Once again proving how far they were ahead of the game, but also, how far they were behind their own fans. Although, to be fair, it did take the rest of the country a whole lot longer to catch up.
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