How to Run a Uniform Size Run for a Youth Team

Every coach who has ordered kit has a version of the same story. The box arrives, the squad opens it at the first session, and three players are drowning in their shirts while one cannot get his over his shoulders.

Nothing went wrong at the printer. It went wrong weeks earlier, at the point where sizes were collected, and it went wrong in a way that nobody could see until the kit was already made. Sizing is the step in a team uniforms order that gets the least attention and causes the most problems, because it is the only step you cannot undo.

The default method is a group message asking everyone to send their player’s size. It is fast, it is free, and it produces a bad size run almost every time.

Three reasons. Parents report the size their child wears in everyday clothes, and jersey cuts are not sized like t-shirts. They report from memory rather than from a label, and memory lags growth by months. And a proportion of any group will not reply at all, so you end up guessing for the last four players anyway.

You are also asking parents to make a judgement they have no basis for. A jersey is cut differently from a school shirt, shorts are cut differently from gym shorts, and nobody outside the sport knows how a given brand runs.

The reliable method is boring and it works: get sample sizes in front of the squad and have every player put one on.

Fifteen minutes at the end of a training session covers a full squad. Players try a sample, you record what fits, you move on. There is no interpretation, no memory, and no guessing, and it is the single highest-value fifteen minutes in the whole ordering process.

If you cannot get the whole squad in one session, run it across two and chase the stragglers individually. Do not fill the gaps with estimates, because the estimates are where the problems come from.

What to check on each player

• Shoulders and chest in the jersey, standing normally. It should not pull across the back.
• Sleeve length. Youth cuts vary more here than parents expect.
• Shorts at the waist, with the player moving rather than standing still.
• Whether the player can raise both arms fully without the hem lifting past the waistband.
• Sock size, which almost nobody checks and which has its own sizing.

This is where the most expensive errors live, and every squad in the U12 to U14 range has two or three players sitting in it. Youth and adult sizing are separate systems, not a continuous scale. A youth large and an adult small are not the same garment: the adult cut is generally longer in the body and cut differently through the shoulders, and a player who has outgrown youth large is not automatically an adult small.

For any player near that boundary, have them try both. Then record which system you used, not just the letter. A size sheet that says "L" without saying youth or adult is a sheet that will produce the wrong shirt.

The kit ordered in August is being worn in May. Players grow, and a squad of thirteen-year-olds will not be the same size in spring as they are now. The temptation is to size everyone up. Do not. An oversized jersey on a young player looks poor, moves badly, and gets tucked and knotted in ways that make it look worse. Sizing up across the board also does nothing for the players who were not going to grow.

Handle it player by player. Ask each parent one question at the try-on: has your player grown noticeably in the last six months? For the ones where the answer is yes, and particularly where the current size is already a borderline fit, size up. For everyone else, fit them as they are. Ages roughly eleven to fourteen are where this matters most. Below that, growth is steadier. Above it, most players have slowed down.

Numbers and sizes should be recorded in the same session on the same sheet, because separating them is how a size nine shirt ends up with the wrong number on it.

Have players choose numbers at the try-on and write them next to the size as you go. Sort duplicates on the spot rather than by message later, and keep a note of who wanted what if you have to reassign. If you are ordering custom jerseys with names as well, capture the exact spelling in writing rather than transcribing it from memory afterwards.

What your size sheet needs

• Player name, exactly as it should be printed.
• Jersey size, with youth or adult stated explicitly.
• Shorts size and sock size, recorded separately.
• Squad number, plus a second choice.
• A growth flag for players you sized up.
• Date collected, so you know how stale it is at reorder time.

Keepers get missed constantly because they get sized with the outfield squad and then need something different anyway. A keeper needs a kit in a colour that distinguishes them from both teams and both sets of officials, and they usually want a different fit to an outfield player because of padding and sleeve preference. Size them separately and check your competition’s goalkeeper uniform rules before ordering, not after.

If you rotate keepers, size for whoever will actually be in goal, and consider whether one kit will cover both players.

A size run that exactly matches your current roster is a size run that fails the first time a player joins mid-season, damages a shirt, or turns up having grown two sizes over Christmas.

Add spares in the sizes that cluster in the middle of your run, since those cover the most players. Two or three extra sets is usually enough for a youth squad and it costs far less than a small reorder later, when you may also be dealing with a different fabric batch and a visible colour difference.

Coaches and staff are worth a thought here too. If your staff wear matching kit, they are part of the order and they need sizes collected the same way.

Sizing is the step that determines whether everything downstream works, and it is also the step most likely to slip, because it depends on getting an entire squad in one place.

Run the try-on session before you are up against when to place the order, not the week of it. And decide early whether you are running this as a team store or a bulk order, because that changes who is responsible for collecting sizes in the first place.

If you would rather not run the session yourself, talk to our team sales desk or bring the squad into any of our five Texas stores in San Antonio, San Marcos, Tomball and Katy. We size teams for a living and we will get the sheet right the first time.

How do I collect uniform sizes for a youth team?

Run a try-on session with sample sizes at the end of a training session and record what actually fits each player. Asking parents to report sizes from memory is the most common method and the least accurate one.

Is a youth large the same as an adult small?

No. They are separate sizing systems with different cuts, and the adult version is generally longer in the body. Any player near the boundary should try both, and your size sheet should state which system each size refers to.

Should I size up so the kit lasts longer?

Only for players who are actively growing, and decided player by player. Sizing the whole squad up produces a squad in oversized kit and does not help the players who were not going to grow.

How many spare kits should a team order?

Two or three sets in the middle sizes of your run covers most situations for a youth squad. It is cheaper than a small reorder later and avoids a visible fabric or colour mismatch between batches.

What if a player joins after the order is placed?

This is what spares are for. If you have none, a reorder is possible but comes with its own timing and matching considerations, which is why building spares in at the start is the cheaper decision.