'What we lack in people we make up for in heart' - the hard-working Stafford teamwear firm who've risen to become world leaders in motorsport

Harlequin Teamwear owner Liam Barnett met business partner and co-owner Jason Roberts at local non-league side Stafford Rangers, with the pair setting up the business aged 18, before Liam decided to ditch a career in architecture in 2023 to work on it full-time.

But that decision has paid off, with the firm making a splash across the motorsport world after starting out in 2011, and has now grown to be the biggest teamwear supplier to British Touring Car Championship teams for the past three years.

The company specialises in custom-designed 'sublimated' teamwear, offering a comprehensive suite of services including design, manufacture, retail, delivery and fulfilment from its base, a stone's throw from the Marston Road football ground where co-owners Liam and Jason first decided to design and sell team kits.

"It's our fourteenth year now, but it all just started as an idea. It took a while to actually set it up properly and become a fully fledged business," said Liam.

"At the time we set up I was going to university at 18, my business partner Jason was working in plastering. We both met through our local football club Stafford Rangers and started to talk about the idea of designing football shirts which I think in football is a very common thing for people to do.

"We started to look at potential suppliers, we looked at software and taught ourselves how to use it, and progressed from there."

Having spent the first five years working across the main sports in the UK such as football and rugby, the firm found its feet in the major darts championships, before getting its big break in motorsport in 2016 through the Clio Cup championship.  

The company now works extensively across several different race series including the British Touring Car Championship, British GT, British Superbike Championship, TCR UK as well as championships operated by Ginetta, MINI and Porsche, with eyes on a tie-up into Formula-E on the horizon.

"We got a call one day from a driver who was racing in the Clio Cup, James Dorlin asking if we could sponsor a few jackets," said Liam.

"We went along to Oulton Park in Cheshire, there was 90,000 people there and that was kind of our introduction to motorsport. I just went there and came alive - I just thought 'wow, what a place'. We saw an opportunity where we could make the clothing match the standard of the other branding at those events. Motorsport is about 60% of our work now, it used to be higher but there was a bit of a strategic move to spread our income a little bit more due to how seasonal motorsport is."

Despite now supplying over 40 countries worldwide and working with some of the biggest brands in the motorsport world, Liam says the company is still keen to work with the smaller clubs who they still regularly receive enquiries and orders from.

Over the next year, the firm plans to continue to grow the business organically, as well as finish fitting out their Stafford premises, having moved in over the past two years. New meeting facilities and a showroom are planned for the early part of 2025.

"We used to operate out of shipping containers across the road, so all our storage would be in there, there was no office, no nothing - we took this place on, and we sat here one January day two years ago thinking 'okay, what do we do now?'" added Liam.

"With the clients we're dealing with in the automotive industry now there's a bit of an expectation [when they come here] and we want a premises where people can come and enjoy the space so that's our focus for the first part of this year.

"The key things we set out to be is affordable and we want to be able to give people this custom look, so being from working class backgrounds ourselves, we just want to be affordable and make people look good and for their teams to be able to put stuff on that they're proud to wear.

"We're just a very hard-working team that are trying to grow and push on. So what we lack in people we make up for in heart, we'll do anything we can for anybody."