The Best Gifts for Football Fans That Aren't a Shirt

Buying for a football fan looks easy and is not. The obvious options are all taken: they have this season's shirt, last season's shirt, the mug, the keyring, the scarf, and a drawer containing four more scarves. Anything you buy from the club shop, they have either already got or deliberately chosen not to get.

The problem is that most football gifts are merchandise — mass-produced, badge-led, and interchangeable between fans of the same club. What actually lands is something specific to their version of supporting that club: the ground, the postcode, the era, the song. Here are eight ideas along those lines, none of which is a shirt.

1. A Monopoly-Style Print of Their Ground

The Monopoly property card is another of those layouts everyone can read without instruction: the coloured title bar, the name, the little block of type underneath. Swap the London street for Anfield, Elland Road, Craven Cottage or the Etihad and you get something that works as a joke and as a piece of design at the same time.

It is the safest choice on this list because it flatters the club without shouting. A badge on a wall is merchandise; a property card is a nod. The stadium monopoly print range covers most English and Scottish grounds, and if you want the background there is a whole piece on the board's original design.

2. A Vintage Bus Blind Canvas

This is the one that surprises people. Old bus destination blinds — the roller of white-on-black place names in the front window — happen to be a near-perfect typographic format: stacked capitals, tight leading, no ornament at all.

Put a club's stadium and local landmarks on one and it reads as transport signage rather than football tat, which is precisely why it survives in a living room. It is the version of football art you can hang somewhere your partner also has an opinion about. Anfield, Celtic Park, Ibrox, Stamford Bridge, Villa Park and several lost grounds are all available.

3. A Print of a Ground That No Longer Exists

Highbury. Upton Park. White Hart Lane. Maine Road. For a certain age of supporter these are not stadiums, they are their childhood, and no club shop sells them because there is no shirt to go with them.

This is the highest-scoring idea on the list if you get the era right. A fan who stood at Highbury does not want a print of the Emirates. Check which ground they actually grew up going to before you buy — it is usually decided by whoever took them, not by geography.

4. A Song Lyric Print of the Song They Sing

Every club has one: the anthem before kick-off, the terrace song that has outlived the player it was written about, the record that gets played when they score. It is the part of match day that has nothing to do with the football.

A song lyric print of that song — the title, the line, set as type — works because it is the emotional bit of supporting a club without a single badge in sight. Keep it to a short line rather than a whole verse; on a wall, less type reads as design and more type reads as a poster.

5. Postcode Art for Their Ground

N5. M16. G51. SW6. Postcodes are shorthand that only locals and fans use, and putting one on a wall is about as understated as football decor gets — most visitors will not even clock what it refers to.

It works especially well for someone who has moved away from the club's city, because it is really a print about home. Our postcode and city map prints cover the London districts in detail, and we went into the idea properly in our piece on North London postcode art.

6. A Custom Dream Team Line-Up

Eleven names, their formation, their era. This is the gift that gets argued about, which is the point — no two fans of the same club pick the same eleven, and the ones they leave out say as much as the ones they include.

Build it around a specific side rather than an all-time XI if you can: the promotion season, the cup run, the team that was on the wall when they were twelve. Specific beats definitive every time.

7. A Map Print of the Walk to the Ground

Match day is a route as much as a fixture: the same station, the same pub, the same corner. A map art print centred on the ground captures the bit of supporting a club that merchandise never touches — the geography of a Saturday.

Frame it for the hallway rather than the living room. It is a print that rewards being looked at closely, which is what a hallway is for.

8. Their Words, Not the Club's

The chant they invented on a coach. The thing their dad always said at 2–0 down. A line that means nothing to anyone else and everything to the two of you. A plain personalised word art print does this with no club branding at all.

It is also the only option here that works when you genuinely do not know enough about their club to buy safely — you do not have to, because you are buying about them instead.

Why Wall Art Beats Match-Day Merchandise

A quick honest summary of the difference, because it explains why the eight above work and the club shop mostly does not.

• Merchandise expires; grounds do not. A shirt is obsolete in twelve months by design. A stadium print is not tied to a season, a sponsor or a squad.
• It survives contact with the rest of the house. Most football gifts get confined to a home office or a shed. Typographic prints and map art do not read as football at first glance, so they are allowed in the hall or the living room.
• Nobody else will have bought it. Three people will buy them club-shop items this year. None of them will buy them a print of the ground their granddad took them to.
• It is about their history, not the club's. The club's history is already documented everywhere. Theirs is not.

Choosing Between Them

If you are still stuck, the shortcut is age. Under about thirty-five, the current ground and a monopoly or postcode print will land. Over that, go for the ground they grew up with, or the song. If they moved away from the city, postcode or map art wins outright.

Sizes run from 21 x 29.7 cm up to A1 across the framed and canvas print range, and there is more on picking a size for the room in our room-by-room guide. For fathers who fall into all of the above at once, the Father's Day gift collection and the birthday gift collection are the places to start.

More on the football range in our guide to football canvas prints, and if the fan in question is also a reader, our guide to personalised Penguin book cover art.