As I teased last week, this week’s edition will be a little different. Actually, it will be very different. First off, we’ll (for the most part) be focusing on the Good. Secondly, we will be a “We” indeed, as I asked the others to pop in and nominate some of their favorite shirts as well. No, there’s really no big surprises as to who picked whom, but the shirts actually look nice for once.
What’s the occasion for all of this? Well, best as I can figure, this is the 104th edition of this little slice of heaven. You know what that means? Two straight years of this! As an added bonus (and as a nod to those who have told us they can’t fully search the tag) I will be linking back to all of the old editions here as well. And, finally, we’ll reach just a little outside the Association Rules world and look at another football shirt from a closely related sport. Trust me, it is worth it.
ü75
It’s my baby, so I get to start. Rather unsurprisingly, I head to Aberdeen.
This is the Aberdeen away shirt from around 2002. I really like the clean lines and the lack of noticeable manufacturer logo on the front. The club badge commands the center of the upper chest, a position I prefer. Plus, the black and gold are not just random colors but instead are the original colors of the club, back when they were nicknamed the Wasps. If only I owned one of these.
Norfolk Ned
Ned, of course, went for a Norwich shirt. His choice–the away shirt from 2005–is on the list both for looks and memories.
2005 was a happy time for Ned. His club were in the top flight, they had a top notch shirt and a top notch sponsor. Plus, as only the few lucky Norwich fans know, this shirt was really comfortable.
spectator
Spectator jumped in next and, in a move that will amuse those who made it to the Foul Up in Baltimore, stole the 1974 Dutch kit from under the nose of The Likely Lad.
Modeled here by Johan Cruyff, spectator had many reasons for picking this shirt. Here, I’ll let him put it in his own words:
Let’s start with the fact that David Winner’s Brilliant Orange is surely toward the top of UF’s required reading list, assuming that we ever got around to writing one. The thing I love most about the Holland kit is that it perfectly embodies that particular team and the playing style. The color orange has always had special meaning to the Dutch thanks to William of Orange’s overthrow of Spanish rule but, more so, the color epitomized the way that the 1974 team burst onto football. It was all flash and style, so somehow having bright orange shirts made perfect sense. Plus, the kit had a sweet lion crest, black stripes on the shoulders, simple black-and-white numbers on the back, and a V-neck to boot, making the kit somehow understated and brazen at the same time. To my mind, this is the greatest kit ever worn. Your average WTF kit designer would do well to heed the example: less is more.
Clear enough, yeah?
Autoglass
Let’s see if ol’ Autoglass can fool us with his pick. The choice is in, and the answer is. . .no.
Our resident (and very busy) Chelsea fan pick the shirt from whence his online moniker came. Though I am not a fan of the top of the arm/bottom of the arm division of color, I greatly prefer that old badge to the current one. And, as Autoglass points out, it’s much more preferable than the current moob-bra shirt they are wearing now.
James T
JT broke the rules a little and nominated two shirts. Both of them are red and iconic.
Once again, I’ll let someone more eloquent than I tell you about it. James T:
Just an iconic f**king look. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that we won a World Cup (blah blah say all you want), but Bobby Moore and the Charlton brothers carried this look well. The three lions crest pops off the front, and the absence of all other flair or trim sums that squad up to perfection; their swagger was internal. No need for fancy accoutrements; just a fierce, blood-in-the-veins get-up that I wish they’d really bring back. This white s**t is too sterile, too virginal, too wrapped up in religious inference. They need the red again.
Once again, JT:
The shirt they wore to win the European Cup. King Kenny rocked the look well, as did most of those soccer gods. Even Souness, a man known for his vanity, could look sharp in the red with vertical white pinstripes, the striking V-neck bordered in white, the arm detail and of course, the old LFC badge set in gold stitching.
The Likely Lad
Lad ran in at the death and blew the door open. He picked no less than seven shirts for this project. In the interest of fairness (and not wanting to kill myself) I have whittled his list down to three.
Cruyff models again! This, of course, is the traditional Ajax look unsullied by sponsorship. Though one has to wonder if TLL secretly likes all red shirts with white on the sides.
TLL also goes for the powder blue look from Lazio as long as, he takes pains to point out, it too has no sponsorship.
Finally, Lad has the balls to admit what no one else will cop to–he really likes one of the shirts I had previously used in this weekly feature. Ladies and Gentlemen, the USA 94 star shirt.
Then again, he also professe to like the current USA shirt with the golf shirt hoops on it, so take that with a grain of salt.
TLL also liked the white Tottenham 125th anniversary shirts, Peruvian shirts with the red diagonal stripe, England’s shirt from Euro96 and any and every Barcelona shirt.
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Wow, this has been a lot of work already. Now it is time for the links. I hope I did not miss any as I was compiling these. Enjoy your run down memory lane.
Tottenham
Hull City
Oxford United
Benfica
Peterborough United
Aberdeen
Caribous of Colorado
FC Porto
Werder Bremen
Juventus
San Jose Clash
Scotland
Celtic
USA
Bury FC
Liverpool
Manchester United
Celtic, again
Ajax
Norwich City
St. Johnstone
Manchester United/Chelsea
Stoke City
Wiener Sport-Club/FC Wil
Netherlands
Euro 2008
Deportivo Pereira
Independiente
Dundee FC
Northern Ireland
Partick Thistle
eBay special
Tranmere Rovers
Forfar Athletic
Manchester City/Wigan
Sport Boys
VFL Bochum
Cameroon
Nottingham Forest
East Fife
Hibernian
Dunfermline Athletic
Eintracht Braunschweig
Arsenal
1860 Munich
ESV Griefswald
San Lorenzo
Buffalo Blizzard
Deportivo Pesquero
Dundee United
Olympique Lyon
Red Star Belgrade
Shimizu S-Pulse
Hednesford Town
Grasshopper
Barnet
Norwich City
Carlisle United
Perugia
Mexico
Germany
WPS(L)
Watford
Tartans!
Selangor
Kaiserslautern
Sierra Leone
CA Spora
Swarovski??
KV Mechelen
B68
More plaid/tartan
Shakhtar Donetsk
Barcelona
Glentoran
Torquay United
Italy
Boulogne
Bradford City
FC Lorient
Scarborough
Getafe CF
Everton
Everton, again
Club Deportivo Moron
Hartlepool United
Everything Norwich
Coventry City
RC Lens
Batman
Shrewsbury Town
Botev Plovdiv
Partick Thistle
UAE
Corinthians
Managers Edition
Bury
Maccabi Tel Aviv
Mexico
Leeds United
Galatasaray
Internacional
Alacranes de Durango
Never again.
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Finally, this popped into the ol’ UF mailbox a few weeks back, and I have to share. Edinburgh Rugby Club unveiled a special jersey for some kind of derby match. It is way more hideous than anything I have featured on here.
That’s. Just. Horrible.
Wooo. Well done sir.
Seriously, umlaut! Kudos for your dedication to our longest-running (and only surviving) recurring feature!
Well done. It seems that the end of the year is generating some reflection here at UF. Some of these old pictures lead me to re-post a comment from last night’s backpasses because I’m genuinely curious:
“I doubt anyone will see this down here [I was right] but looking at those photos of Shankly reminds me of something I’ve long wondered about. It seems like someone could make a fortune by securing the rights to old soccer (or any other sports really) pictures and selling high quality prints of them. Each year around Christmas I look for old Liverpool prints for my brother brother but can’t seem to find anything. Maybe I’m just not looking in the right place but I’m sure there’s a market for these type of nostalgic pictures. Perhaps someone could enlighten me.”
Mine:
U.S. 2006 World Cup Change kit: So, so classy, one of the only shirts that uses a horizontal stripe right.
Villa 2008-2009 change/2009-10 third: Nice change of pace for a third jersey, and it was the debut of the team donating the shirt sponsorship.
Villa 1975-1981 I much prefer the old, simple claret and blue circular crest, and I’m a sucker for a kit with a collar. I also picked up a replica of this when I was over for the Newcastle match at the end of the season.
On the note about collars, I really dig this year’s Everton change kit. It’s different and classy.
And I’ve always thought Wycombe have had fun kits.
@Keith: I gotta disagree about Everton. They remind me of these:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3511/3914248701_53dde1444b.jpg
If you want to see some truly horrific rugby kits, check out Stade Francais.
Oh yeah, and I really liked Marseille’s Kanye-riffic “Sweater Vest kits”
Goat:
to be honest, I’m not sure where you would begin. I think the market for old photos is dictated by who owns all the shots. I don’t think too much of it is public-domain, but maybe reproduction rights are hard to come by and/or expensive.
Might be worth trying eBay, too? I don’t believe there is a central repository… or maybe a lot of people are keeping their photo collections firmly offline or reserved.
@JT: Yeah, I imagine the logistics would be pretty daunting but I would think that individual teams might be able to do it. Basically what I want is a http://www.toffs.com for photos. Why can’t the internets just do what I want?
@Andrew-
In the Boulogne GBWTF, I linked to a Google Image Search of Stade Francais shirts. They are indeed horrible.