A businessman left behind 18,000 useless T-shirts that falsely predicted England would be World Cup winners.
Football fan Karl Baxter was so convinced the Three Lions would return home from Qatar as winners that he printed the top ahead of the quarter-final.
“England, 2022 Cup winners, finally home” and “Day of Homecoming” are scattered across the back of the jersey.
But the gamble didn’t pay off, with Gareth Southgate’s side losing 2-1 to France in Saturday’s quarter-final after Harry Kane missed an equaliser Chance.
“We had a lot of blank shirts that we bought a few years ago and we didn’t do much with them, so I decided to take a gamble on the England wave and print some kits and hope for success,” Mr Baxter, 46, told Sky News.
“Apart from the shirts we have, as an England fan I’m very disappointed that we’ve gone out the way we did,” said the general manager of Wholesale Clearance UK in Poole.
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“Wear it with pride…or clean your windows”
In a message to customers on the website, Mr Baxter wrote: “We have reduced the price of these unique items as we are sure not to be buying any more.
“So wear it with pride, add it to your collection, use it to clean windows… we don’t know.”
The father-of-three added that while the shirts didn’t cost too much to make and he had already sold a few of them, “there’s a few more to get rid of”.
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“If they’re the England Cup winners’ shirts, we can always try to sell them, not only as a trophy that never came… but as a celebration of the only true England Cup winner in 2022, our wonderful England women’s team. team,” he said.
Asked if he had a message for England fans, Mr Baxter simply replied: “There’s always the euro.”
The shirts were originally set to retail for £29.99, but are now on sale for £9.99.