Decades of Decadence: A Brief History of Classic Football Shirts

Is there a more iconic item of sports clothing than the football shirt? Since the very beginnings of the game, the football shirt has gone from being (intentionally) functional attire to a fashion statement that reaches beyond fans simply showing their colours. The football shirt has hit such an iconic status that celebrities are now regularly seen reaching for the polyester and nylon that will earn them instant likes, often to the tune of thousands, and sometimes even millions.

Here, we attempt to unpick the history of the football shirt to appreciate its journey of over 150 years, focusing particularly on the last 50 years as they grew in production and popularity to explain what takes it beyond being just fabric to an extension of someone's being.

In the beginning...

While the first football shirts may have been thick, heavy, and far from the comfort of the athletic fit player issue shirts we see today, their style continues to pave the way with tradition being the cornerstone to a team’s identity. Whether stripes, hoops, half and half or just plain colour, many team’s shirts continue to resemble their humble origins in some way. For those that don’t, there’s usually a recent special edition to mark a significant anniversary or small elements of tradition integrated into a modern design. For example, one of the most famous is the green and gold of Newton Heath, the club that later became one of the biggest names in world football, Manchester United. It first returned to Old Trafford as a third shirt in the club’s first Premier League title season, but has become a firm fan favourite and a political symbol for fans disdain at the club’s current ownership.

The half and half design was a popular choice of early football with many clubs sporting this style in their fledgling years, and this has been made all the more apparent with recent special edition anniversary shirts marking a club’s milestone. In particular, the blue and white version synonymous with Blackburn Rovers has been shared by some notable club’s in the past including Atletico Madrid, who recently departed from their iconic red and white stripes with their 120th anniversary shirt. Sky blue and white was also shared by clubs including Tottenham Hotspur and Crystal Palace, with both returning to their half and half roots with special edition kits in recent years to mark their early history.

However, while a kit’s design was generally limited to four styles - stripes, hoops, half and half or one plain colour - it was the material of the kit that needed to evolve most. It’s almost impossible to fully appreciate the conditions that footballers had to endure in the early days compared to how comfortable they are now. The kits were thick and heavy, like the old rugby shirts anyone over the age of 40 had to wear for outdoor PE at school. They were oversized, loose, and got even heavier throughout a match as they absorbed moisture like a towel. Added to this, the pig bladder balls became like medicine balls on a wet day, requiring the neck muscles of a heavyweight boxer to execute an effective header. Unfortunately, it took some time before technology afforded players more comfortable and functional materials which became catalysts for how the game has rapidly evolved over the last 50 years. Yes, style may have changed slightly along the way with button-up collars becoming lace-up collars, and v-neck collars making way for crew neck. But it wasn’t until the very late 70s that we started to see heavy and thick cotton make way for more streamlined and pliable polyester and nylon.

The Birth of the Modern Football Shirt

After relatively uneventful decades of standard football shirts differentiated mainly by the choice of collar, the seventies was where it started to get interesting. It was a decade of significant change which would shape much of the future for the football shirt, and it was the decade where modern football, the game that billions across the globe cherish today, really began to evolve.

There’s no doubt that England’s World Cup win of 1966 piqued interest with a then record audience of 30m tuning in to their television sets across the nation, but this was just one ingredient of a cauldron of events combining which catalysed the game in a defining decade. A further key ingredient was capitalism beginning to sweep through western culture following 25 years of tough post-war recovery. All of a sudden there was more money floating around and life really was beginning to get better, helped along by the ‘swinging sixties’. This was where the roots of football’s commercialisation started to weave their way through the foundations of the beautiful game. Many fans will have strong views on this, positive and negative, but when looking through the lens of the football shirt, it’s difficult to argue its merits.

In 1973, the often polarising but forward-thinking, ruthless and commercially astute Don Revie provided the catalyst for the retailing of football shirts when agreeing a deal with newcomers Admiral to redesign Leeds United's kit so that it could be copyrighted with replicas produced and sold to fans and the club received a royalty from each sale in return. However, it was visionary, Sir Matt Busby, who planted the seed for the retailing of football kits when, in partnership with Umbro, Manchester United began selling junior kits for young fans as early as 1959. However, it was Admiral that really grasped the opportunity and used this innovation as a launch pad to attract further big clubs across the country, hungry to maximise opportunities arising from the growth in popularity of the game and generate additional revenue streams. Unfortunately though, and has often been the case, fans were short changed with these replicas being made of cheaper materials than those the pros were wearing. For example, the pros were wearing kits made from natural fibres and featuring embroidered while replicas were made with cheaper, man-made nylon and with heat-applied print which was prone to cracking after a few washes over embroidered detailing. For clubs and manufacturers, these cheaper versions could be produced quicker and in higher quantities, but crucially at a much cheaper cost to create favourable margins to ensure that there was plenty to share between them. However, fans, blinded by the excitement of finally being able to own and wear the kits of their heroes, did not mind one bit, and football kits quickly became must-have items, particularly for young fans on the playground.

While shirt sponsorship did not creep in until the end of the decade, the wheels were set in motion as kit manufacturers started to add their logos on the right side of the chest opposite the club crest on the left. Established brands such as Umbro and Bukta, together with new entrants Admiral were leading the way in British football, sharing the majority of league clubs between them. And, by the mid-70s, following the successful move into retail, all three soon started to including their logos in a repeating pattern along the trim of the sleeves and sometimes in other areas including the collar.

 

The iconic Admiral Spurs shirt of the late 70s featuring a repeating Admiral logo along the collar and trim of the sleeves.

At the time, it would have seemed perfectly reasonable and fair for manufacturer logos to appear on shirts. After all, they were the ones making them. However, the ripple effect this would have for football both in the short and long term could not have possibly been perceived at the time. Indeed, this can now be reflected upon as the opening of the floodgates leading towards the business of football as we know it today. Even though shirt sponsorship officially came later, it all started to happen in Germany at the same time as Admiral and Don Revie's retail masterstroke with Eintracht Braunschweig and Jagermeister being the first football known to carry a shirt sponsor. However, it took another three years before it reached the UK with a highly unlikely protagonist in Kettering Town. They were the first British club to feature shirt sponsor when agreeing a deal with local business, Kettering Tyres. However, the custodians of the English game, the FA and the Football League, together with TV broadcasters were against such a move and Kettering were ordered to remove it. Soon after in 1977, clubs started to unite as they continued to chase new, lucrative revenue streams with Derby County and Bolton Wanderers joining Kettering to challenge the powers that be. With pressure mounting and the authorities recognising the inevitable, their proposal was swiftly granted, however, somewhat ironically, Kettering were then unable to find a new sponsor. Instead, it was Hibernian who would become the first professional British club to wear a shirt sponsor with kit manufacturer Bukta emblazoned across the middle of it shirts. A year later, Derby followed as the first English club to agree a shirt deal with car brand Saab, but only to feature the shirts in the official first team photo - astonishingly, they didn't actually play in them. So, it was left to Liverpool to be the first club to feature a shirt sponsor in a competitive match with Hitachi in 1979.

The seventies brought more colour to our lives in every conceivable way: technologically with the colour TV, politically as Margaret Thatcher's career took off and culminated with her becoming Britain's first female Prime Minister in 1979, and culturally as fashion went psychedelic. It was an era of expression, and football clubs and kit manufacturers were keen to join the party. Plain coloured, collarless shirts were becoming a thing of the past in favour of distinctive designs that would give each club greater identity with styles still synonymous today. However, whilst the seventies brought about a sizeable shift, it was merely part of the evolution and nowhere near what was to come in the next two decades. Designs were still stylish and remained relatively subtle as the boundaries began to get tested. Not only this, the heavy cotton that players had worn for generations was also making way for the much lighter nylon and polyester.

The Experimental Eighties

Despite the seventies opening the commercial floodgates, the 80s was arguably the most significant decade for football shirts. It was when the shackles really started to come off and when football shirts started to embrace mainstream fashion and popular culture over what had previously been quite straight, formulaic and conservative. The seventies may have started to introduce individualism for teams and a greater sense of identity with small, more subtle details being added to typically traditional colours, but the eighties took that and ran with it, literally. Football shirts were now starting to show personality, taking on a whole new meaning of expression for fans in an era of political unrest and technological change. It was a tough decade for many, but football was a refuge still deeply rooted in working class society, providing two hours of brief, but desperately welcome escapism at the end of a long working week made no easier by the Thatcher Government. Despite the game’s growing commercialisation, it was in its infancy and remained affordable to remain accessible to the masses, and football shirts provided the mask for fans to visibly detach themselves from the everyday.

With shirt sponsorship being rubber stamped by the authorities in 1979, it would be another four years before shirt sponsorship really took off thanks to TV pushing back for fear of the impact on its own revenue streams. The BBC were against it for fear that it would undermine and possibly jeopardise its very existing through the licence fee, and ITV were scared of the potential impact on its own key revenue stream - advertising. So, even though the FA and Football League had given their permission to clubs to feature shirt sponsors, clubs were not allowed to wear shirts with sponsors when TV cameras came to town. This led to some clubs getting creative by incorporating their sponsor's logo into the design of their shirts. However, TV were quick to respond by boycotting any clubs doing so and, with that having wider commercial ramifications, it didn't last long.

 

Coventry City's innovative approach to the rules on shirt sponsorship in 1981 led to this beauty of a shirt, only to see TV broadcasters boycott their games both home and away.

Inevitably though, TV's resistance couldn't last forever and by 1983 broadcasters finally gave in, albeit with tight guidelines and regulations which allowed a sponsor's logo to be no bigger than 81 square centimetres but half that when on TV. Even so, the ceiling had been lifted and teams were permitted to embrace the unavoidable and irrevocable by courting brands to feature their logos across their shirts. As a result, the value of shirt sponsorship skyrocketed with brands eager to be shown on Match of the Day or The Big Match. Inevitably, this has grown and grown ever since with the games global appeal and Premier League teams now allowed to have a second sponsor on their left sleeve. Football League teams are even allowed to feature brands on the back of shirts across the shoulders and above the player’s name, and on the back of their shorts at the base of the left leg. Many foreign leagues also follow this approach to allow clubs to strengthen their financial viability and some go even further, for example, Serie B teams in Italy now carry two sponsors across the front of their shirts, one stacked on top of the other. Hopefully, it won’t come to this, but it really does make you wonder if football kits will slowly start looking like an Formula One driver’s overalls in years to come.

The eighties were defined by anarchy in many ways, and although there were many unwelcome elements that crept into the game simultaneously such as hooliganism, racism and other anti-social behaviour, clubs started to develop their own identities with more rebellion also; breaking with tradition with the help of kit manufacturers pushing the boundaries, with Coventry being a prime example, with less conventional designs and ones that came to define the classic football shirt. Shirts evolved rapidly in this decade, representing arguably the most significant shift from season-to-season across those 10 years as things became more experimental. If you compare kits of the early eighties with those of the late eighties, you could be forgiven for thinking that they were from two separate decades rather than the same one. Those in the first half remained more traditional, but with the addition of sponsors and increased branding from kit manufacturers pioneered by Admiral, European brands started to  enter the UK market and began to eat away at the market share of the established British brands that paved the way for them in the 1970s. This included the famous three stripes of Adidas and the iconic chevrons of Hummel appearing on both football pitches and playgrounds up and down the country as more brands looked to seize upon growing commercial opportunity within the game with the barriers coming down further. As a result, the second half steadily became even more expressive with the help of evolving technology as polyester, nylon and sublimated print brought new possibilities. Without these new materials, manufacturing and printing techniques, we would have been waiting even longer for the masterpieces that are the famous shirt of Holland’s European Champions of 1988 and that of West Germany’s World Champions of 1990, a shirt which was also designed for the 1988 European Championships but proved so popular that the German FA and Adidas agreed to give it one more tournament. Both of these shirts regularly feature as the top two shirts in popularity polls, and in which order often varies and divides opinion, but it’s generally agreed that these are the best. These shirts have become synonymous with the teams that wore them, but more than that, national symbols, and the fact that their popularity is universal proves that a classic football shirt is about more than a team’s success, although it helps.

Many shirts created in this era have gone on to become iconic fan favourites, leaving an indelible mark of the game, either with success on the pitch or without it as there are many contributing factors to what makes a classic football shirt. So much so, many consider the eighties to be the golden age for football shirts, but a football fan’s view is often determined by their age and the nostalgia they hold for their childhood when things will often be perceived with more fondness. However, it’s the uniqueness of eighties kit designs which set them apart from other decades. It was the decade that paved the way for what was to follow as the boundaries were pushed even further throughout the 90s.

The Naughty Nineties

If the eighties was the decade where football shirts developed a personality, the nineties was when they found their voice. With Adidas and Hummel leading the charge with some vivid, eye-catching and unique designs towards the end of the eighties, other brands joined the party and boundaries were well and truly pushed with clubs beginning to break from tradition and express themselves as the game embraced a new dawn.

Whilst football came a long way in the 1980s, it wasn’t without its challenges and it still had much further to go in the decade that followed. In many ways, it was a defining era for the wrong reasons. Hooliganism was still rife and a number of tragedies demanded change, particularly where stadiums were concerned, for us to be able to watch the game we love in the safe surroundings we now enjoy. Football had developed an identity crisis as fans lost confidence in attending matches and it desperately needed a rebrand. Fortunately, as if by divine intervention, it found this at the turn of the decade as Italia ‘90 brought the romance back before we were led into the birth of the Premier League with an increasing sense of professionalism that would sweep through the 90s as more money flowed in and new cultures of football were welcomed with open arms. There’s no doubt about it, football needed new ways of finding finance to deliver upon imperative new safety requirements demanded by the Taylor Report following the Hillsborough tragedy responsible for the deaths of 97 innocent Liverpool fans at their FA Cup semi-final against Nottingham Forest in 1989, and the Premier League certainly provided the much-needed catalyst for English football. With the help of Sky, TV coverage became richer, slicker and more frequent with the addition of Saturday lunchtime kick-offs, more Sunday matches and even ‘Monday Night Football’ to navigate around the 3pm broadcast lock-out, and audiences grew both domestically and globally as a result.

With an increase in supply, demand grew more and more as fans feasted with a hunger they never knew existed. In some ways, in the years to come, Sky became the victims of their own success as popularity grew and the Premier League demanded more and more for the broadcast rights as a result. But as audiences increased, so too did demand for every other aspect of the game. People were concerned that rising levels of TV coverage would discourage fans from attending matches, but the opposite was true as clubs not only improved safety at their stadiums but also raised capacities to allow more fans to attend and ticket sales duly followed.

And so, with new fans created and existing fans re-engaged and re-energised, football was finding the finance it needed to reinvent itself with merchandise sales providing a key revenue stream, spearheaded of course by shirt sales. Whether long-standing and long-suffering life-timers or newfound fanatics, fans were hungry to show their colours and desperate to have their hands on their team’s latest shirt. Such demand led to 3rd kits becoming the norm and a complete change of a team’s wardrobe on a seasonal basis. Brands and clubs alike were eager to seize upon the burgeoning popularity of the sport and prices unfortunately increased with an adult replica shirt breaking the £40 mark and a full kids kit costing as much as £60. This came under heavy scrutiny with football and its clubs accused of taking advantage of its fans, especially when clubs began changing kits every season towards the end of the decade. However, with demand so high, the game had a strong argument to the contrary and stood firm. 

Despite this though, one major positive was that, with more kits being created both with a third shirt and on a seasonal basis, clubs began to offer more imaginative designs that moved further away from the traditions. New colours were introduced to a club’s palette and boundaries were pushed further to deliver fans more exciting alternative options with many becoming iconic and some even developing a cult status which is why so many of the most popular classic football shirts are from the 1990s.

The iconic, but 'Marmite' Chelsea away kit of the mid-90s saw a departure from tradition to create one of the most memorable football shirts of what was a golden decade.

The Heyday Hangover

A general rule of thumb in life is that what goes up must come down; one moment you’re riding high enjoying the time of your life before the hangover kicks in the following morning. Unfortunately, the football shirt hasn’t been immune to this. During the 30 years that preceded the turn of the Millennium, football shirts just seemed to get better and better, but it’s a widely-held belief amongst football fans that they reached their pinnacle in the mid-90s. The bold, bright, colourful and unique designs that defined an iconic era for the beautiful game were swiftly swapped for plain, simple and, quite honestly, benign generic templates as they became more traditional in style. While the nineties was a decade largely dominated by the collar, the naughties saw a sweeping return of the crew neck and v-neck as the collar became a rare commodity. Unconventional, off-the-wall designs were also replaced by plain block colours true to a club’s roots.

Within this though, there were some exceptions and some diamonds in the rough. For example, Kappa ultimately redefined the category with the introduction of its skin-tight but ultra-stylish Gava shirts, initially with the Italian national team in 2002 before sweeping through Serie A with the likes of Roma and Sampdoria, and other European leagues with Werder Bremen, Real Betis and Feyenoord en route to the Premier League with Tottenham Hotspur, Blackburn Rovers and Fulham. Wales also made the Gava shirt their own with an unmistakable red variant which was arguably the best example. To be fair though, this was a rare highlight in what was a pretty torrid decade for classic football shirts; decade where kit manufacturers seemed to lose their imagination. 

Kappa, with its Italian style, brought some rare inspiration for the noughties in what was a rather dry decade compared to 10 years that preceded it.

Much of this was down to the downturn in fortunes of Umbro. Arguably ‘the’ kit brand of the 90s, at least in the UK, where it became responsible for some of the most classic of football shirts of all-time and the bold backdrop of the Premier League’s fledgling years. It would be fair to predict that there‘s an Umbro kit in most British football fans’ top three somewhere. Whether your club wore Umbro or not, it’s likely that your national team would have done so. But either way, Umbro would have had you directing admiring glances towards your rivals every now and again. It was impossible not to such was their radical radiance combined with class and culture which defined a decade.

However, for every loser there is always a victor, and that definitely came in the form of Nike as the globally-dominant sports brand targeted European football to grow its presence outside of the US and take Adidas on in its own backyard, primarily targeting the Premier League before moving into other major European leagues, domestic clubs and national teams. Umbro wasn’t the only great British sports brand to fall victim to Nike’s muscle though with the iconic Mitre Delta football making way for Nike to take ownership of the official match ball of the Premier League and soon become the same in other European big leagues. And then, if that wasn’t enough, Nike added insult to injury when it briefly purchased Umbro from its then Chinese owners for £285m in February 2008 which enabled them to secure the rights to the elusive and very lucrative England kit deal they had desired for so long. Just over four years later in May 2012, the smash and grab was complete as Nike announced that it would be selling Umbro to a fellow American business, Iconix Brands Group, at a loss but retaining the sought after England contract that would more than make up for it as the FA announced in September that year that England would be wearing Nike kits from the summer of 2013, just in time to mark the FA's 150th anniversary. Even though this may have irked the purists, particularly as it was in an Umbro kit that England lifted the World Cup in 1966, it was a move that would prove to be good for everyone involved as England were rightly positioned alongside one of the world’s most iconic brands; a status deserved with its global shirt selling power which meant that the FA would be able to forge a growing appeal with the lucrative youth market which Umbro seemed unable to connect with since the nineties when every teenager up and down the country was rocking around in Umbro shorts. Plus, there was a knock-on effect for top England internationals such as Wayne Rooney now able to wear Nike in both club and international football whilst being one of its biggest global ambassadors, and fans were now wearing cooler shirts from a cooler brand. It really was win, win, win, win.

End of an era: the final Umbro kit to be worn by England before Nike was to take over from May 2013.

Tedious Templates

Similar to the decade before, the 2010s got off to a relatively dull start with simplified, minimalist designs. Block colour was the order of the day and the more imaginative and graphic designs of the 1990s was a distant memory. Solid colour, clean lines and subtle details were the key ingredients, yet fans still rushed out to purchase their team’s latest threads with many fans preferring the traditional look. Coinciding with this trend was the event of many clubs celebrating the significant landmark of 125 years since formation. Naturally, for such an anniversary, a traditional design that celebrated a club’s history and its inauguration was the only choice.

With this though came nostalgia. Historical, cultural themes which inspired these anniversary kits lit the fuse for the rebirth of the retro football shirt. Whilst retro has always been there for football fans thanks to retro-specialist brands like Toffs and Score Draw, the appeal was generally limited to older generations harking back to a time of their youth, favourite team or heroes. Helped along by emerging brands in this space including Classic Football Shirts, and since, many others, it still took until the end of the decade before it really started to take off. However, in the background, teams and manufacturers started to experiment with subtle cues to spark nostalgia and evoke a sense of understanding to strengthen bonds with their fanbases.

The way the game has developed since the 90s in particular has created a growing divide between the game and its fans. A sense of marginalisation has been created and grown like a cancer as the game generates more and more revenue and becomes a business more than a sport, and thus separating it from its working class roots. Therefore, clubs are having to work harder to maintain their relationships with fans, and in so doing, the notion of ‘fan engagement’ has become a vital strategic pillar for football clubs. With growing popularity comes growing commercialisation, and clubs now understand fans as being customers. There is no doubt that this has had significant benefits with clubs (well, some) not taking fans for granted and treating them with more respect, and therefore forming a tighter bond with supporters which in turn has positive commercial consequences. But, with a club’s kit being the very fabric of their identity, they have a very powerful vehicle to strengthen that bond. As a result, many clubs have used their kits as a way to connect with fans to show that they are all one of them; that they really understand how a fan feels about their football club and what’s important to them. Many clubs during this decade even put the final say on kit design in their fans hands and more often than not fans opted for tradition. In fact, Hearts took it a step further in 2015 by featuring the names of 8,000 fans who donated to keep the club afloat.

 

Alongside tradition, clubs also started to deviate away from this to celebrate local culture. With the process of the natural evolution created by migration and growing diversity, the face of local culture has changed for each and every football club throughout their history, so this approach has often been at odds with club tradition. But what this approach has done is create new ideas, new concepts and new designs in an industry that desperately needed it. It has also allowed clubs to widen their appeal and connect with a new generation of fans.

As the decade progressed, with the growing resurgence of retro, football shirts started to become more graphical in design again with bright, unique patterns starting to reawaken from their deep slumber since the 90s. We were again starting to see bold, eye-catching designs ranging from geometric shapes to camouflage-inspired patterns as clubs started to break free of the shackles of tradition in what became a decade of two halves where football kits were concerned. Whilst retaining their traditional colourway for home kits, clubs started to go wild with liberation when it came to away and 3rd kits, particularly the latter. Clubs started to write a new history with the introduction of different colours that often divided opinion to appeal to a younger fanbase. Again, with commercialisation rapidly spreading throughout the game and its pyramid, the marketing teams at both kit manufacturers and clubs started to see their kits as segmentation opportunities, and kits were now being specifically designed to target a segment of a clubs fanbase. The home kit was for the traditional and typically older fan, the away for the cross-generational, more liberal fan who liked something fresh and imaginative but with a touch of tradition going no further than colour, and then the third became a case of ‘anything goes’. These third kits are often considered to be ‘Marmite’, but love them or hate them they are likely to be the cult kits of the future. Regardless of popularity, manufacturers tend to produce smaller quantities of third kits, making them a rarer commodity compared to their home and away counterparts and this will undoubtedly make them a more valuable collector’s piece.

With innovation in their design, football kits also became more innovative in their fabric. Advances in technology led to the creation of lightweight, more breathable fabrics improving comfort for players and creating ‘performance’ lines priced at a premium for fans. It’s fair to say that these have not been to everyone’s taste as they provide a snugger fit than the fan variants, but some are more than happy to pay extra to own exactly what the players wear; a trick that was missed back in 1973 when Admiral started the retail snowball that was to develop and lead to where we are today by selling cheap replicas. Upon close inspection, it is also easy to see and feel the difference these have for players over the heavier polyester of ‘fan’ or ‘stadium’ variants or replicas of yesteryear.

Innovation wasn’t limited to performance alone though. This was also the decade which saw leading sports brands strive for a greener approach to manufacturing with brands like Nike beginning to make shirts from recycled materials such as plastic. This has been a landmark development in the evolution of football shirts. In a world where clubs now have at least three kits per season which are updated annually, football has become a victim of fast-fashion culture and brands are having to respond responsibly and sustainably. Add to this the large carbon footprint that football has beyond its shirts, and it’s obvious that football needs to do what it can to be more environmentally responsible. 

It's important to note that these trends were not universal, and different clubs and manufacturers embraced different styles based on their branding strategies and fan preferences. Additionally, individual seasons and tournaments might have seen specific themes or design approaches that deviated from the broader trends. Further originality was found in some clubs and kit manufacturers collaborating with fashion designers and artists to create special edition variants that teams didn’t even wear, instead these were created only for the fans as unique and exclusive streetwear alternatives and these proved pretty popular. Some of these special editions were also a further statement of identity which added to fans’ relish, whilst some clubs also took the opportunity to collaborate with charities to execute a smart PR tactic and deepen their bond with fans, going above and beyond green commitments

Retro Reborn

By 2020, the 90s renaissance was well and truly underway. So far this decade has seen the return of Reebok Pumps and Reebok Classics, cycling shorts with cropped t-shirts, and even Gladiators making a comeback to our TV screens! Above all that though, nothing and no one has embraced the 90s as much as football and its fans. While classic football shirts were steadily simmering throughout the previous decade, only in this decade have they come to the boil. And they continue to grow in popularity with fans happy to pay up to £200 to get their hands on a rare favourite, and sometimes even more.

Such is the growing popularity of retro and classic football shirts that this now extends beyond kits themselves to training wear and other items with a birthdate in either the 1980s or 1990s. Retro tracksuits, jumpers and even shorts can now fetch a princely sum well above their original retail value when they were fresh out of their packets. In most cases, an original tracksuit from the nineties can earn its owner up to £150 while an old pair of shorts could get £50 or even more. It’s even been known for an old Umbro drill top to be priced at over £1,000 on eBay, suggesting that these could be even more lucrative for anyone with these items gathering dust in lofts or underneath beds due to their rarity. Generally with training wear, fewer units were made compared to shirts because football shirts have always ruled the roost for manufacturers, clubs’ merchandising teams and their global retail efforts, and will continue to do so. So, if you’re holding onto an old tracksuit that’s in good nick, now could be the time to dust it off and get it on eBay or Depop.

Such is the demand for retro football clothing that Adidas have recreated and reimagined 90s training wear and equipment with a number of subsidiary lines with their biggest clubs to develop modern fan streetwear. Fans of Arsenal, Man United, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Ajax, Juventus, Roma, Celtic, Leeds, Boca Juniors and River Plate have been able to enjoy some of the finest designs from the retro heyday brought back to life in their colours. Added to that, Germany, Spain and Italy have also had the same treatment with both classic shirts reproduced and new ranges inspired by original 90s designs. Quite simply, no other brand has come close to Adidas on reimagined retro and they have absolutely nailed it. Other brands may have created modern kits inspired by retro designs (to the point that this is now quite common), but no one has brought the 90s back like Adidas and long may that continue.

Adidas have embraced the rebirth of retro like no other brand with reimagined designs taken from the nineties and applied to its current portfolio of clubs and national teams.

Other brands though have tried to seize upon the rising popularity of football shirts as fashion after a post-90s slump. After the birth of the 3rd kit in the 90s, the 20s have seen many top clubs and manufacturers create an unprecedented 4th strip as limited editions featuring for a one-off game or sometimes not at all. With many clubs hitting their 125th anniversary milestone in the previous decade, the 4th kit ceiling was removed with clubs marking their anniversary with a special edition kit worn for the game closest to the official date of their inception. However, that seemingly paved the way for the 4th kit to become a more regular thing with fans again lapping up a rare exclusive, and these have now become commonplace for clubs working with the big manufacturers and thus becoming acceptable for these to feature purely as fashion and not necessarily for function. As manufacturers continue to find ways to appeal to different audiences across a club’s seasonal kit range, the 4th strip is usually designed with a younger audience in mind. These are far from traditional or conventional to pique the interest of Gen Z, and it works. At the start of the decade, Nike launched a range with its Premier League clubs to celebrate its own iconic sub-brands. Tottenham, Chelsea and Liverpool all enjoyed a 4th strip inspired by various styles of Air Max trainers in the 2020/21 season, but again, none actually made it onto pitches.

 

Tottenham’s Eric Dier launches the club's Air Max 95-inspired 4th shirt midway through the 2020/21 season.

How long this renaissance will last no one knows. One’s thing’s for sure, it’s showing no sign of stopping just yet, and as fans, we couldn’t be happier about that. The 1990s was a defining era for football as changes were made across the game which would alter it beyond return, for both good and bad. But, one thing that cannot be disputed is the indelible mark made by the bright, the bold, and on occasions, the outrageous football kits we hold on to and still wear so fondly.