Edwin van der Sar

Six seasons out of a twenty-year career

All twenty-six items on this page are Manchester United goalkeeper shirts numbered 1, and they run from 2006 to 2011 — the second half of his time at the club he joined in 2005 and left when he retired in 2011. Four of them are the 2010-11 yellow goalkeeper shirt. Nothing represents the rest of his career: no Ajax, where he won the Champions League in 1995, no Juventus, no Fulham, and no Netherlands shirt despite 130 caps.

Eleven of the twenty-six are Player Issue

That is unusually high. A Player Issue shirt was made to the squad’s specification rather than for retail sale, and it is what drives the prices here: those listings have run from about £179 to £539, while ordinary retail goalkeeper shirts from the same seasons sit lower. One item is not a shirt at all but a pair of 2007-08 goalkeeper shorts. The seasons covered include 2008-09, when Van der Sar went 1,311 minutes without conceding a league goal, and 2010-11, the season he became the oldest player to win the Premier League at 40 years and 205 days.

Condition and sizes

Grades run from 6/10 to 10/10 with a median of 8, so the wear is moderate. Sizes skew large — XL and XXL dominate, which fits goalkeeper shirts generally — with a few in M, S and 13-15 years. Listed prices have spanned roughly £29 to £539 with a median near £239, making this one of the dearer pages on the site.