Quote:

For those of us that are completely unfamiliar with English football. Who are they? And why are they wearing shirts with the Triumph logo on it?



Football is extremely popular here, and is played at many diferent levels. To give you an idea of how popular, I live in a large village (population about 9000) and my local club runs about 16 teams, from 8 years old to adult (including 3 girls teams). All of our teams play in local (county) leagues. At this level it's all done on a financial shoestring, and no-one gets paid anything. Each team's kit is generally sponsored by local small businesses (i.e. they pay the club enough to buy the kit for the team) , and they get to have their name printed on the shirts. The kit is used until it's worn out, and then a new kit sponsor is sought.

As you move up the levels the teams become better (in theory), the grounds have beter facilities (again in theory) and are bigger, the players start to get paid, and sponsorship of the teams becomes more expensive. It's reckoned that Vodaphone (a cell phone company) pay Manchester United about £9m ($15m) a year to have their name on the shirts.

From the top down the English football structure is:

Premiership (Arsenal, Man U, Chelsea etc)
Championship
League 1
League 2
Conference
Conference North / South

Hinckley United are in the Conference North. In theory they could get promoted one step a year (if they finish in the top 2 or 3 of their league) and be playing in the Premiership in a few years time.

Triumph will have paid to get their name on the shirts, but how much I wouldn't like to say. I'd imagine that finances are tight at HUFC, as their average home attendance is about 500 people. I'd guess that their players are what is known as "semi-pros", i.e. they get paid to play but also have normal jobs.