Classic Comebacks
There’s no doubt about it, the 80s and 90s provided the golden era for football kits. No matter who you support, it’s highly probable your favourite kit came in either one of those decades and no one could blame you. For a number of reasons, kits back then were just better - plain and simple.
Of course, there’s a whole load of reasons why us football fans are so nostalgic about the 80s and 90s - terracing, bad haircuts, the smell of deep heat… the list goes on. Some, we were happy to lose, even Chrissy Waddle’s famous mullet, but our affection for football kits just grows and grows. More fans are opting for classic over current, and this includes those too young to remember players strangely deciding to wear shirts two sizes too big. We all remember the more vertically challenged players appearing swamped by their shirts and shorts, almost as if they were wearing their favourite duvet cover. Some are likely to blame the kit men, but this was a definite trend before players became more athletic and figure-hugging shirts became the norm, pioneered by Kappa and the popular Italian kit which blazed a trail in world football before arriving in the Premier League with Tottenham in 2002.
The recent BBC series ‘Fever Pitch: The Rise of the Premier League’ provides a fantastically nostalgic trip through 90s top flight English football, even though it starts with the darker side of the game in the 80s which played a major role in its creation. The vast majority of us will be grateful to see all that in the past, but the shirts continue to be a growing source of nostalgia as we cling on to arguably the most exciting era football has seen. Not only has demand grown for replicas of classic football shirts, the market for second-hand pre-worn and pre-loved shirts is now big business. Prices have increased significantly and so too has availability with so many traders, whether flying solo or as part of a business, breaking the supply and demand rules of basic economics.
Such growth in popularity has led many kit manufacturers to reproduce classic designs or use them as the basis for retro-inspired modern-day adaptations. The notion of harking back to bygone eras and glories is nothing new. Arsenal, for example, have used their simple but classy 60s & 70s template of red shirt with white sleeves and red trim as the basis for many a shirt since and it’s sure to come around again multiple times. West Ham are another, using their unmistakable claret and blue of a similar nature to Arsenal’s classic template time and time again. The Hammers’ famous sky blue away shirt with claret hoops is another that has made countless comebacks.
The truth is, all clubs have their traditional looks that they deviate away from slightly each season but regularly come back to. What’s different is that the famously bright and bold shirts of the 90s are coming back around as a modern-day take on a classic. In recent seasons, Arsenal again have worked with Adidas to recreate the iconic ‘bruised banana’, whilst this very season’s third shirt is inspired by the popular Nike lightning bolt away shirt from the mid-90s. Manchester United, again with Adidas, have followed a similar path for recent away shirts with the classic blue and white Sharp shirt of the early 90s being given a 2020 makeover. Norwich City even brought back their superb ‘egg and cress’ shirt from the early 90s for a season in 2016, cleverly reversing the colours to create a popular third shirt in partnership with Errea.
One of our favourites though has to be the 2021/22 West Ham home shirt. Brought back to life by an iconic retro brand in its own right, Umbro, the fan favourite Fila home shirt of the late 90s transports fans back to the days of Di Canio, Lampard, Ferdinand, Cole, Carrick, Kanoute, Defoe, Pearce… the list goes on. That was one hell of a team under Harry Redknapp’s charge and it’s a befitting tribute to see the shirt back in East London, donned by possibly the best group of players The Hammers faithful have seen since.
What do you think of the recent retro-inspired shirts? Is it good to see them back or should they be left alone? We’d love to hear in the comments below.