Images visits Young Guns Sports, a specialist in customised dye-sublimation printing for niche sports, from ice hockey to flyball
Next time you’re watching dogs leaping over fences and crawling through tunnels at Crufts (the world’s largest dog show), look to the handlers. As in any sport, professional-looking teamwear has become important in dog agility competitions at the higher levels, and canine sports is one of the areas where Young Guns Sports in Derbyshire has become a go-to supplier. Originally set up to provide kits for inline hockey players, it has expanded over the past nine years to provide customised and personalised clothing for all kinds of sports through dye-sublimation printing in-house. “With dye sub, you have a bespoke design all over the garment so you’re going to look more professional than if you were to go to an embroidery shop down the street,” explains Jay Burfield, who looks after sales.
Jay Burfield talks about the Young Gun Sports operation
Jay, who joined two years ago from trade body Fespa UK, is part of a small team running Young Guns Sports within the much larger print services group, Specialised Canvas.
Young Guns Sports was set up in 2017 as a new venture within the group by two members of the Specialised Canvas team, brothers Ryan and Rob Shelton. They saw an opportunity for supplying customised kit for inline hockey teams – a sport they knew well from personal experience as players. They swiftly built this niche business up, expanding it into the complementary areas of ice hockey and ball hockey.
Jay Burfield of Young Guns Sports at the Crufts dog show
Competitors at Crufts dog show wearing kit made by Young Guns Sports
Dog days
The customer base expanded in a new direction five years ago when a roller hockey customer asked if Young Guns Sports could produce teamwear for his son who was involved in flyball, a canine sport where dogs complete an obstacle course and then leap to catch a ball. That then led to sportswear for dog agility and even competitive dog grooming competitions. “It just snowballed as there was a natural progression from one sport to the next,” Jay says. At this year’s Crufts dog show at the NEC in Birmingham, several competitors were wearing sportswear from Young Guns Sports. “When you get to the stage of competing at Crufts, there comes a certain expectation of what the competitors are going to look like.” However, Jay stresses they focus on garments for the human handler rather than the dogs themselves – something they choose to leave to other companies because of the variety in dog shapes and sizes.
Despite investing in a direct-to-film (DTF) print system last year, dye sub remains the heart of the business, developed out of the Specialised Canvas group’s dye-sub expertise in banners, flags and other wide-format printing. Designs are printed onto dye-sublimation paper using two 1.8-metre-wide Mimaki TS55-1800 dye-sub printers, supplied by CMYUK. The Mimakis are capable of print quality up to 1,200dpi, making them perfect for the often highly detailed and sophisticated designs that teams want for their sportswear. The paper is then put through a 3.4-metre Monti Antonio calender press with the fabric, which is then cut using one of two Zünd cutters or the new multi-purpose JWEI cutter, also from CMYUK. The panels are then taken through for stitching which, again, is all done in-house by members of the group’s team of sewing machinists.
Flyball competitors often want an image of their dogs on their sportswear
Teamwear for Swindon Storm Ice Hockey Club
Garments built to last
For hockey, the core requirement is a three-panel long-sleeved jersey made of lightweight sweat-wicking breathable polyester – at 150gsm for inline and ball hockey, and a thicker 280gsm for ice hockey with reinforced stitching round the collar. On the tiles, inline hockey players wear ‘long pants’ – trousers with reinforced knees – whereas the ice hockey players wear thick blade-proof shell cover shorts made of water-repellent polyester with four-way stretch panels. Players also often want polyester legwarmer-like socks made of stretch polyester cut off above the ankle. Extras are available such as fight straps for jerseys or Velcro tabs for socks. “Ice hockey is more of a contact sport so it needs to be built to last,” Jay points out.
Young Guns Sports produces kit for all ages – the company has produced sportswear for children as small as four years old. “They’ve barely been walking for five minutes, but you put them in ice skates and they’re off!”
Although most of the work is for teams, Young Guns Sports also prints sportswear for individual competitors, especially dog handlers. For canine sports, sportswear is mainly T-shirts, hoodies and T-shirts.
The company also produces a range of customised kit bags, which need to be especially big, strong and durable when it comes to hockey. Using 245gsm tent-style polyester, they are made from dye-sublimated panels, which can be personalised with individual names, numbers, colours and logos, sewn together along with zips and mesh as needed, plus box-stitched handles for extra durability.
The busiest time for the business is over the summer when the big orders for the upcoming hockey seasons come through. These will then be topped up throughout the year leading into tournament season.
Young Guns Sports’ minimum order with dye sub is £50 and, while it does print one or two pieces at a time, pricing will inevitably vary. A full team roster in ice hockey is around 20 players, but some clubs will place orders for 200 children at a time. The dye-sub process allows Young Guns Sports to provide personalisation for each individual within the team, such as names, numbers and captain’s patches.
Young Guns Sports manufactures all of its garments in the UK
In-house manufacturing
Manufacturing clothing in-house in Derbyshire is one of the major selling points for Young Guns Sports. “There is competition in the market, but a lot of the others are importing from China and other parts of Europe,” Jay explains. “It may be a bit cheaper, but one of our USPs is that we are made in Britain and I think people are looking more to back British manufacturing.”
Because the garments are cut, printed and sewn in Derbyshire, Young Guns Sports can also offer shorter lead times.
Another selling point is providing a personal service from the first contact. Ideally, Jay will try to get to know a new club by going to visit them, meet the club reps and watch the players practise. “I like to get a feel for the club. It’s nice to have that personal touch rather than going through an online designer and emailing back and forth. We like to keep up a good relationship with local clubs and if we can help them, we will.”
Customers also choose Young Guns Sports because of its expertise in sportswear design for hockey and canine sports. As part of the group’s studio, graphic designer Brad Fisher has honed his skills over the past three years turning briefs from customers into dazzling reality, mostly using Adobe Illustrator. Roller hockey customers, in particular, like “weird and wacky designs”, Jay adds. “We have had some strange enquiries, but we get there.”
For canine sports, competitors often like to have a picture of their dog featured on their shirt, usually taken from a photograph and turned into a vibrant image.
Maintaining good relationships is part of the whole group’s ethos, adds marketing manager Simon Butterworth – a former professional ice hockey player who is head coach for Nottinghamshire’s Sutton Sting ice hockey club. “We provide the best overall service, whether it’s the initial order or the ones and twos further down the line. It’s very much a market where, if you get the product and service right, you tend to get the work coming to you.”
Customers are located across the UK, with clusters not just in the Midlands and Yorkshire but in other areas such as Wales. “If you get into one rink, they’ll recommend you to their friends and even the rival teams,” Jay explains. “Once you get in with the senior teams, they’re often in charge of coaching the juniors so it goes from there.”
Word of mouth has also brought in customers from overseas, usually due to a UK connection, so Young Guns Sports is supplying teams in the Netherlands, Spain and Gran Canaria, Belgium, Poland, China and Singapore.
Young Guns Sports’ print room, with one of the Mimaki TS55-1800 dye-sub printers and the 3.4m Monti Antonio calender press
The company’s new JWEI cutter
New DTF direction
The latest new direction for the company is investing in DTF, which, along with outsourced embroidery, means the company can offer other textile-based merchandise, such as T-shirts, hoodies and headwear, as well as labelling on bags. It began by outsourcing the DTF, “to test the water to see if it would be of interest”, then pressing the designs in-house. It quickly became apparent that the interest was indeed there, so it invested in its own machine a year ago, buying a Mimaki TxF300-75 from supplier Soyang Europe. “We went for 800mm instead of 500mm because we wanted more room to play with when it comes to gangsheets,” Jay adds.
He says that DTF allows Young Guns Sports to upsell to its dye-sub customers. “If you’re selling them jerseys, socks and shell covers, the parents or spectators are interested in buying merch.” He says that doing this in-house brings the added appeal of being able to turn around an order for a T-shirt within a few days. He adds that the group did briefly experiment with doing embroidery in-house, but opted to continue outsourcing. “It’s not our niche – print is what we’re good at.”
Despite the growing popularity of the DTF offering, dye sub remains around 99% of Young Guns Sports’ overall business.
Another add-on for customers is being able to use the group’s flatbed print equipment to create coaching boards on rigid aluminium composite material (ACM). These are used by coaches to go through tactics with their teams, laminated so they can be used like a wipeable whiteboard, often with suckers so they can be attached to glass. Young Guns Sports can also call on its sister company Flagmakers (see boxout – Specialised Canvas), if customers want rink flags or banners.
While the company continues to add to its roster of hockey teams, Simon says there are “a lot of opportunities for growth” in canine sports. “A lot of the competitors and teams are still wearing embroidered and DTF-printed gear but when they see dye sub, it looks more impressive.”
One emerging new area is esports – the world of online gamers. Traditionally played at home across game networks, there are now big events which bring people together in real life. “There are competitive teams with matching jerseys or matching T-shirts,” Jay says. “It might not be a physical sport but they will wear matching uniforms while they are playing.”
Other sports are also bringing in customers such as ten-pin bowling, martial arts, darts and running, Jay adds. “We’re always looking to expand, looking for a niche where we can fit in. One of the things we love about this is just how varied it is from day to day.”
