pera play Newfoundland and Labrador’s Unlikely Foray Into England’s Soccer Scene

This weekpera play, my colleague Rory Smith used his soccer expertise to look at the sport’s contribution to fashion. Specifically, he reported that vintage soccer jerseys have become popular street wear and that buying and selling them has turned into a major business.

ImageBarrow’s players will carry Newfoundland and Labrador’s name on their jerseys for two seasons.Credit...Andrew Couldridge/Reuters

Rory’s surprise appearance within the Styles section of The New York Times coincided with a surprising contribution by Newfoundland and Labrador to the world of soccer jerseys.

[Read: A Moment in Time, Preserved in Polyester]

The province is spending 171,000 Canadian dollars to put its name, a maple leaf and a web address on the jerseys of Barrow A.F.C., the team of Barrow-in-Furness on the west coast of England, for two years.

If you’ve never heard of Barrow, you’re not alone.

“Even football fans in the U.K. would find it hard to name a single Barrow player or even place it on the map,” Tariq Panja, the Times global sports reporter, told me in an email.

Barrow plays at the fourth, and lowest, level of professional soccer in England.

“Barrow is by pretty much any definition a small-market team — tiny town, miles away from anywhere (by British standards, probably not by Newfoundland and Labrador standards), only relatively recently in the league, very little historical imprint on soccer,” Rory said by email.

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