The club scarf that’s class
Roy Keane’s withering “prawn sandwich” put-down has done little to stem the relentless gentrification of the Premiership. Arsenal’s new Emirates Stadium, for instance, offers its middle-class faithful cushioned seats, wine by the glass and “handcrafted” roast vegetable pies. Fulham flogs fruit smoothies and Chelsea has its own health spa.
Yet one key fans’ emblem has withstood the demographic pressure to trade up — the football scarf. The vile poly-whatever monstrosities sold by club shops and dodgy stalls have remained resolutely synthetic, clashing most unpleasantly with the 21st-century supporter’s natural-fibre ensemble of choice.
So put down your sandwiches and raise your wineglasses to savile-rogue.com, which this week unfurls “the world’s most luxurious football scarf”. For £36 you get an unrepentantly luxe, lustrously soft 100 per cent Mongolian cashmere scarf in your club’s colours, woven in a 200-year-old Scottish mill.
“There’s very little out there for the more stylish, well-off fan,” says Paddy Barnes, of Savile Rogue: “This is an attempt to let them wear their colours without fear of static electricity or incurring an ASBO.”