Academy spotlight: Kitman Josh Farr

This time, we meet Academy Kit Manager Josh Farr, who explains what goes into making sure Palace’s young players have everything they need – from the first kit laid out in the morning to the final pair of boots packed away after a match – and how a non-league opportunity helped him find his way to the very top of English Football...

By the time Palace’s young players arrive at the Academy, Josh Farr has already been at work for several hours. The footballs are pumped up, training kit laid out, boots prepared and equipment taken to the pitches, while on matchdays the preparations begin even earlier.

Much of the work can go unnoticed when everything goes right, which is exactly how Farr believes it should be.

“A good day is when nobody comes to ask me for anything,” he explains. “It means you've done your job and everyone's got everything they need.

“We try and make sure everybody has everything set out for them, everything's done, so they don't have to think about that. That's one less thing for the players to think about.

“They don't have to think about whether they've got the right kit out or if they've got their boots out. They can just come in and focus on what they need to do on the pitch and know that everything else is there for them.”

That philosophy underpins a role that touches almost every part of Academy life. Farr oversees the kit operation from the Under-8s through to the Under-21s, as well as supporting staff, with the Under-18s and U21s requiring the day-to-day attention that comes with being full-time players.

For Farr, organisation and pride in the job go hand in hand.

“Being organised is big,” he says. “Standards, taking pride in your work – something I massively take pride in.

“I try and make sure everything's done, set out, kit to kit, boots to everything.”

Farr’s route into football was far from conventional.

After leaving school, he began working in a pub kitchen, having first started there part-time while still at school. He progressed from washing dishes to preparing desserts before becoming second chef, eventually taking charge of the kitchen on the head chef’s days off.

The unsociable hours eventually prompted a change and, at 19, Farr joined the local council as a dustman, where he spent the next seven years. Football remained a constant, though, and he had always wanted to find a way into the game despite never having played at a high level or followed the traditional route into professional football.

When a kit role came up at Merstham Football Club – Step Four of the English football pyramid – Farr applied and took on the position alongside his council job, gaining the experience that would eventually open the door to Palace.

“I always loved football,” Farr says. “I was never talented enough myself to play football and I went out of school and straight into work, so I didn't really have any degrees or get any real qualifications.

“But I wanted to do something in football and I loved collecting football shirts before as well. I just wanted to get involved with something like that and I think being a kit man was something perfect because I'd already got, I suppose, a lot of the skills you need for that.”

A reference from then-Merstham player-assistant manager Michael Kamara – who was also Palace’s Under-14s head coach, a role he still holds today – helped Farr secure an interview in South London, and after getting the job he had around a month alongside his predecessor to learn the ropes before taking over the role himself.

His first major assignment came soon after: a two-week U21 pre-season tour of Salt Lake City, Utah, in the summer of 2023.

“I was thrown in at the deep end straight away,” he recalls.

“Going from doing the non-league, one game a week, where you didn't have to do training sessions and all that, to going full-time with training sessions every day and packing for 30 people – 20 players and 10 staff.

“It was a big jump.”

More than three years into his time at Palace, preparation remains at the heart of Farr’s work. His day can begin around 7am, when the Academy is still quiet, checking that players and staff have everything they need before heading outside to prepare the pitches with footballs and equipment.

That continues once training begins, with Farr and his colleagues retrieving footballs, moving equipment between drills and helping sessions run smoothly. Afterwards, the focus turns to laundry, sorting equipment and preparing for the next fixture, with one principle particularly important: getting ahead.

“If you've got a game coming up, we'll be packing bundles for a game, printing shirts for the game,” he explains. “It's just trying to get ahead of yourself as much as you can, because things crop up and you have other things.

“If you can get your kit packed two days earlier than you usually would, it helps you out in case something comes up.

“Just being organised and going off a tick list always helps.”

That preparation becomes even more important on matchday, when Farr can be responsible for everything from players’ and staff’s kit to coats, footballs, cones and bibs, along with the smaller details that can easily be overlooked.

Everything is packed in advance and loaded onto the van, with Farr aiming to arrive at the stadium three to four hours before kick-off – well before the players, who typically arrive around 90 minutes beforehand.

“You get in there that early, if you've forgotten anything it gives you time to try and fix it,” he says.

Until recently, Farr could proudly claim he had never forgotten anything. Then an U18 player was added to the U21 squad at short notice for a recent home game at Sutton, and because his boots were stored separately from the rest of the group, Farr realised he had left them behind.

Fortunately, he had arrived early enough to solve the problem before the player knew anything had happened.

“I got there early and when I was setting out the boots I realised,” he says. “I had time to call somebody and say, ‘Do me a favour, can you grab some of those boots and put them in?’

“So the player wasn't aware that that happened.”

It is a good example of the thinking required in the role: problems will happen, but the priority is to solve them before they become someone else’s problem.

“I think it's about trying to solve it without causing alarm first of all,” he says.

“And then if you get to a point where you've forgotten something and you can't fix it, then obviously you've got to address it straight away and just own it.

“Go straight to the manager and say, ‘Look, I've messed up. I've forgotten this. I've tried to do this or I've done this. What do you suggest?’”

The detail does not stop at equipment. Over time, Farr gets to know the individual preferences of the players he works with – from the type of socks they prefer to the size of shorts they wear, or the particular items they want included in their match bundle.

Some players prefer grip socks. Others want a different type. Some have longer match socks; others prefer them cut.

There is no master list pinned to the wall. Farr just remembers...

“I think I'm quite good with my memory,” he says. “I don't tend to have a list of all that stuff. That's all just stored up there.

“I tend to know, especially with the U21s group, who has what. If they're not asking me for stuff on matchday, I know I've done my job because they've got everything that they need.”

That familiarity is part of a wider relationship with the players, but Farr is also conscious of the boundaries that come with working closely with young people. The U21s are professional footballers, but many are still young adults. Further down the Academy, the players are younger still.

His approach therefore has to adapt.

“You have to obviously have that boundary between you and the players,” he says. “They're staff and they're players.

“But you do sit there and have nice conversations with them sometimes. You just have to know certain things you hear you can't pass on.”

That trust works both ways.

For the older players, Farr wants the Academy environment to prepare them for what awaits at first-team level, treating them as professionals while ensuring they receive the same level of care and attention.

“I want them treated exactly the same as getting ready for that step,” he says. “Hopefully those boys can go progress over to the first team.”

As previously mentioned, Farr’s responsibilities do extend well beyond the U21s. The Academy covers every age group from the U8s upwards, as well as staff, meaning different teams can be training or playing in different locations on the same day.

There can be occasions when the U16s and U18s are away while the U21s are also on the road, requiring Farr to keep track of where everything needs to be, who needs what and how the kit is going to get back and be ready for the next fixture.

It represents a significant step up from his previous experience in senior football, where he had primarily been responsible for one team.

“At the Academy, there's a lot more responsibility because you're not just looking after one team,” he explains. “We do the kit here in the Academy for U8s all the way up to the U21s, plus all the staff.

“There’s a lot more to organise and there are different fixtures. You could have the 16s and 18s away at the same time as the U21s are away, and it's trying to logistically sort everything out kit-wise when it gets back as well.”

Away fixtures can add another layer to that workload, with Farr driving the kit van, setting everything up, packing it away and making the journey home before preparing for whatever comes next.

On one particularly demanding occasion, he returned from an U21 International Cup clash with Benfica at Sutton, unloaded their equipment, switched the van over for the U18s’ FA Youth Cup Fourth-Round tie and then drove to Plymouth, arriving in the early hours of the morning. The reward for the mileage? Two 2-1 wins!

It is the sort of work supporters rarely see, but for Farr it is all part of the same purpose: giving the players everything they need to concentrate on football. That sense of responsibility also means he feels the highs and lows alongside them.

“You do feel part of the team because we're all here for the same reasons,” he says. “We're all here to try and help the lads progress as much as they can, giving them everything they need.

“When you're working together all the time, especially with the 21 staff, there’s a good togetherness there.

“If we've lost, I'll beat myself up driving back because we've lost. You feel as down as well because you've tried to do everything you can to help them.

“So you feel the loss as much as you do when you win.”

There have been plenty of reasons to celebrate during Farr’s four seasons at Palace, but the significance of those moments goes beyond the trophies themselves. For someone whose first experience of football work came at non-league level, being part of major occasions at Selhurst Park has offered a glimpse of a world he once could only have imagined.

“I think for me it was great when I joined, to go on that two-week tour to America, because it's probably somewhere I would have never have gone if I didn't work in football,” he says.

“And then my first full season here we won the International Cup. To play at Selhurst, to set the kit at Selhurst and then to lift the trophy there was great.”

Last season provided another run of memorable occasions, with the U18s reaching the FA Youth Cup semi-finals for the first time in nearly 30 years, including trips to Villa Park and Old Trafford, before lifting the Premier League Cup for the first time at Selhurst Park.

“It was nice to see those two age groups, the 21s and the 18s, win those two trophies in the last couple of years that I've been here.”

Farr does not attend every U18 fixture, but when the biggest occasions arrive, he helps ensure the players are prepared in the same way as the U21s – and, ultimately, the first team.

Whether it is a trip to a Premier League stadium or a final at Selhurst, his job remains the same: make sure everything is ready so the players can focus on the occasion itself.

Ultimately, though, the most rewarding part of the job is not a trophy. It is seeing players progress.

Farr has watched Academy players he has known and worked with take the next step towards first-team football, turning up for senior fixtures wearing kit he has helped prepare. There is a particular pride in seeing that journey unfold.

“I take pride in everything I do,” he says. “Every time I set up the changing room, I take pride in making sure that everything's set up perfect. I'm always taking pictures of my work to look back on.

“But I think definitely when you see a player wearing a kit you've made for them on a big occasion, you definitely have some pride about it.”

One example stands out. When Justin Devenny made his first-team debut against Fulham at Selhurst, Farr remembered the young player who had first arrived at the Academy and been handed the No.55 shirt.

Seeing him go from that early Academy introduction to making his first-team debut offered Farr a reminder of the progression he gets to witness from behind the scenes.

For someone who never followed the traditional route into football, it is a fitting reflection of how far his own journey has taken him. From working in a pub kitchen and spending seven years with the council, to setting up kit at a non-league club for £15 a game, Farr now helps prepare Palace’s young players for professional football every day.

His advice to anyone hoping to follow a similar path is straightforward.

“Work hard. Take pride in what you do. Don't cut corners, because it never works.

“Be as organised as possible, because if you're organised as possible then everything seems to run smoothly.”

And if there is one thing Farr’s own journey proves, it is that there is more than one way into football.

“You need to show that you're eager to do the job,” he says. “Even when I went in at Merstham, I was still doing the same as what I did here. I was setting up the kit, taking pride, arriving early to their games, making sure everything was done properly.

“If you're looking to get into kit and be somewhere in football, maybe start at a non-league club first. You can do it while you're still doing another job, get that experience and then you've got something you can put on your CV when a job comes up.

“There's no reason to say people can't do that.”