It's fair to say that our recent 50 Greatest Football Shirts Ever series has been not only a great deal of fun, but also a giant controversy generator. Obviously, this sort of list is always going to be entirely subjective and given it was compiled by four very strong minded people, it's fair to say there are shirts on the list which often saw us split down the middle.
To this end, I thought I'd put together a small post on some of the shirts I personally voted for inclusion that didn't make the cut and, with the benefit of hindsight, ones I'd probably include if we were to do it all again.
Firstly, let me explain how the list came to be...
We individually nominated a selection of shirts - there was no limit to how many we could nominate, but it usually numbered around 20 each.
We then took a vote on each shirt as to whether it should be in the top 50 - again, no limit was set, just literally whether we thought it merited a place.
We then took the shirts which had 3 or 4 votes and they immediately found a place in the Top 50.
Next we nominated 5 shirts from our lists which had gained 2 votes and we voted again.
That left us with one space to fill so we each nominated one shirt from the previous round of voting that hadn't made it. Shirt 50 ended up as the Universitario 88th Anniversary Home Shirt by Umbro, which surprisingly took 21st place in the final list.
Once we had the 50 shirts, we then voted in blocks of 10 (i.e. shirts 1-10, 11-20 etc) and after many, many hours on Skype discussing it, arrived at the final list.
So, from my list of shirts which initially received 2 votes, these were the ones that came so close...
Italy Confederations Cup 2009
Italy 2006
England goalkeeper 1987-89
Canada Centenary
Argentina (a) 1986 World Cup quarter-final
1860 Munich Anniversary (reversible)
Russia (a) 2014
And then there were the ones that were just rejected out of hand!
La Hoya Lorca 2013/14
England away 84/87
St Mirren / Huddersfield 88
World XI 87
So...If I had to do it all again, what do I feel I maybe missed?
Croatia 98 - Not normally a fan of Croatia shirts, but the rippled flag effect did something unique and raised it above the norm.
Coventry - Talbot kit or Admiral tramlines - both of these shirts were before my time, but are both classics. The Admiral tramline shirt did feature at no.11 for Wales, but that Talbot shirt is a true design classic.
Leeds H 95-96 - As with the England 09 shirt, this stripped everything right back and looked great for it.
France A 2011 - Nike's first away kit for France demonstrated how tired adidas had become. White with horizontal navy stripes, it was a striking and very daring outfit.
Peru - specifically the 78 incarnation - One of the biggest elephants in the room, not one of us voted for it, bringing forth howls of incomprehension, but as with the ones mentioned below, can it really be a design classic when one gets the feeling it had little actual design about it? That said, I think I probably would include it next time...
There are many more I'm sure, but that's the thing...when you can think of 100 awesome shirts, how do you separate the good from the great?
Finally, here's some shirts I wouldn't include, despite the howls of amazement that they weren't somewhere in the Top 50.
Brazil 70 (or indeed ever) - Yes it's iconic, but it's hardly the height of design and we were trying to separate the two with this list. Being popular doesn't automatically make it a great design...in our opinion.
England 66 - See above.
Real Madrid - Sorry, RM's shirts just don't excite me.
Ajax - Same again...sorry. Yes some are iconic, but see the points above.
So that's a little more insight into not only what nearly made it, but the process as a whole...as we said on many occasions, this was a long piece of work with an awful lot of thought put into it. It may not be everyone's Top 50, but it's ours :)
I'm currently working on Volume 2 of the Attic Kit Collection Book, but I have 4 remaining copies of Volume 1 available! If you want one, fill in the form below...I'll then send you an email with details etc.
Please note, due to costs, I'm limiting these to the UK only!
(Apologies to any overseas kit lovers.)
The original info for the book is below.
It's been a long time coming with many, many, MANY weekends spent photographing kits, editing said photos and then writing stuff about each one, but it's finally here!
The finished product is a 98-page hardback featuring over 200 different kits (almost my entire collection).
The price is £30. Order before 28th Aug for free P&P
So, if you want one, fill in the form below and I'll contact you to sort out payment.
So the 50 Greatest Football Shirts Ever may be over, but it's not really over till the fat lady sings...or in this case the middle aged men stop waffling about wicking material and design cues...
And so it comes to pass that we present the 3rd podcast in the 50GFSE series, covering shirts 20-13.
Not 20-11 I hear not many of you ask? No...we decided to split the last 20 into 3 pods, to give the Top 5 their own show. We're good like that.
WEST SIIIIIIIIIIIIIDE!
Subscribe to The Football Attic Podcast on iTunes or download our podcast here.
Contrary to what some of you out there may think, we sweated blood over this countdown. We didn't just discuss the 50 Greatest Football Shirts – we argued about them. Endlessly. At times, we threatened to commit arson to each other’s houses unless certain strident views were toned down and even, on one occasion, resorted to calling each other some very rude names indeed.
Strangely, though, it was all worth it. We decided on our 50 favourite shirts and ordered them accordingly, stopping only once we’d written at great length about each and every one. We knew they’d mystify or frustrate some of you by their very inclusion, but by going to the trouble of explaining ourselves so thoroughly, we hoped you’d see our point of view.
And now it’s done. Over seven weeks of daily blog posts and well over a year of planning are at an end. We hope you enjoyed our 50 Greatest Football Shirts Ever series, but before we close the book on this epic tale, we thought we’d summarise what we put before you. Somewhat inevitably, we’ve created an infographic.
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So what does this pink-hued manifestation of second-rate statistical information tell you?
Team Location
To begin with, it may come as no surprise that almost half of our 50 shirts belong to teams based in the United Kingdom (all of us having some sort of strong UK connection). Almost as many again belong to national or club teams in Europe (again, an area of familiarity for us all).
Only nine of the 50 shirts belong to teams outside of Europe which could be conceived as a shortcoming on our part. Guilty as charged… but then again, no-one can be expected to have a comprehensive knowledge of every football shirt in every part of the world.
Shirt manufacturer
More than a third of our Greatest 50 shirts belong to one manufacturer – the company behind our Number 1 shirt, adidas. Surely this should come as no surprise to anyone. The German sportswear giant has been responsible for so many great football kits in their time, whether they’re on our list or not. To come out on top as the most dominant manufacturer in our round-up is perhaps the very least they deserve.
Chipping in with 11 shirts was Umbro – a fine achievement for the designers behind such classics as the England 2009 shirt and, to bring things right up to date, the widely-acclaimed West Ham United shirt for the 2015-16 season.
Another great English company, Admiral, provided five of our 50 shirts, each one showing their imaginative flare covering a period from the early-70’s to the early-80’s.
Of the other manufacturers, Nike and Puma were responsible for just four shirts and one shirt respectively. That’s not to say they’re poor when it comes to football shirt design – just that, in our view, few of their creations have been true classics. Such rigorous standards we applied to our project…
Shirt style
This was a tricky one to create sub-categories for. Gone are the days when football shirts could be simply called ‘Plain’ or ‘Hooped’ or ‘Striped.’ Now, thanks to improved manufacturing techniques, they’re much more complex, not just comprised of a collar and cuffs in a contrasting colour.
Taking that on board, and for the purposes of this infographic, we devised some simple profiles for each shirt style. ‘Plain’ was self-explanatory, and perhaps unsurprisingly accounted for over a quarter of the 50. ‘Halved’ and ‘Striped’ shirts were also well defined if less common in numbers. Hell, we even embraced those new-fangled shirts with ‘Faded’ designs, of which there were two.
What caused a slight headache was categorising those shirts that were essentially plain but were decorated with coloured blocks, lines or other motifs. What could we call them? ‘Decorated Plain’ seemed apt, and mopped up almost half of our half-century selection.
And if you thought ‘Decorated Plain’ was vague, we simply had to add a category called ‘Other’. Well what sort of label would you give the Hull City 1992-93 Home Shirt?
Decade of Origin
We’ve discussed on Football Attic podcasts past that ‘proper’ football kit design didn't really start until the 1970’s, as before that it was essentially classed as ‘equipment’. Despite being a great era for football shirts, however, the 1970’s only accounted for five of our final 50. The lion’s share instead went to the following decade; 20 of the 50 were a product of the 1980’s. Was it really the greatest decade for football kit design? You decide…
Fans of modern shirt design won’t have been too disappointed to see the last five years represented by 11 of our shirts, which reassuringly proves that the era of great design is in no way behind us.
Predominant Shirt Colour
These days, football shirts are often likely to contain any number of elements that in some way dilute its predominant colour. Whether it be blocks and panels in a contrasting hue, or a stripe, hoop or other motif, it’s not always easy to pin down the main colour of a shirt.
For the purpose of our infographic, however, we had to do just that, wherever possible. In so doing, we exposed a wide colour palette ranging from the most popular colour, blue (11 shirts) to yellow, gold, pink and amber (1 shirt each).
One colour that didn't feature, most notably, was black – not that many teams wear a predominantly black shirt in their home kit, but many away kits have certainly turned to the dark side by way of a contrast. Maybe none of them have quite managed to balance this darkest of dark colours with a real sense of style?
Returning to the theme of ambiguity, 10 of our 50 shirts were categorised as ‘Various’ because of the complexity of their colour scheme. Birmingham City 1972-74 Third Shirt, anyone?
Shirt Category
Finally, an interesting (if simple) look at whether our 50 Greatest Shirts have been produced for club teams or national sides. As you can see, the clubs win that particular battle with almost two-thirds of the entire amount. Strange, if you think about it… national team shirts probably get more exposure via major international tournaments, and yet they only account for 34% of all those featured in our countdown.
So there it is – the 50 Greatest Football Shirts Ever in infographic form. Now if only we could represent the approval rating of each shirt as some form of graph…
After over a year of planning, research, discussion, design and sheer hard work producing hundreds and thousands of words for your reading pleasure, we can now proudly reveal our Greatest Football Shirt Ever:
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This is it - the shirt we believe cannot be beaten on design and sheer beauty, and it belongs to (West) Germany, worn between 1988 and 1991. Often admired and beautifully executed, this was a shirt that opened our eyes as to what the future of football kit design could be like. Modern-looking, but not liable to get stuck in a time warp a year or two after its launch, this shirt quickly established itself as a classic in so many different ways. To find out why, and to get some background on why we, the judging panel, placed it at the top of the pile, here are our thoughts on our Number 1 shirt...
[Rich:] I'm sure this may come as a surprise choice to many, but it's one of the few shirts we were all not only unanimous on being included, but also of its place at the top of the pile. While the template has already featured twice in this list, a fact which recognises the greatness of the design, this incarnation of it is head and shoulders above the rest for several reasons.
This shirt made its tournament debut at Euro 88, so it could so easily have been overshadowed by adidas's other offering, as sported by the Netherlands and the USSR, but while they were just the respective nations' colour applied to that particular template, this took the West German shirt to a whole new level. Prior to this landing, West Germany had never made much use of their other flag colours, red and yellow (black had been their standard trim for a long time). Their '86 shirt featured them as trim on the collar and cuffs, but it was so subtle, it was easy to miss from a distance. This, in stark contrast, was visible from space (possibly).
Given almost all of its predecessors - a precession of white shirts trimmed in black in the most staid fashion possible, the impact of this cannot be overstated! Suddenly, the usually straight laced Germans graced the pitch looking the epitome of style. The design was striking without being shocking, It just felt right - like something had been missing all these years.
The shirt cemented its classic status two years later when it was worn as West Germany lifted the World Cup for the very last time as a divided nation. That this shirt lasted not only a lengthy four years, but also continued as the unified nation's home shirt for a year further adds to its iconic status.
Sadly, in typical kit world fashion, the beautiful chest stripes, like the Berlin Wall itself, eventually fell away with their 1992 kit being a shadow of its former self. And then 1994 happened... but not even that can topple this as the Greatest Football Shirt Ever!
[Chris:] As a football kit manufacturer, you have to be very clever indeed to not just create a decent outfit for a team, but also a motif that stands out almost as a brand in its own right. That's effectively what adidas did with their 'ribbon' design which is undoubtedly the stand-out feature of this classic shirt.
So brilliantly original were those three undulating stripes in the colour of the German flag that no other manufacturer could hope to come up with anything remotely similar. If they had, they'd have immediately been accused of mimicking West Germany's 'ribbon'.
Take the ribbon away, however, and you're left with a very simple shirt indeed. First of all, it has a plain, round wrap-over neck that looks perfect (can you imagine this shirt with a v-neck?), plus the ubiquitous adidas stripes in black that are truncated nicely by the ribbon.
Other than the DFB badge and the old adidas logo (pushed higher up the shirt but to no overall detriment), that's it. No contrasting black trim on the cuffs, no intricate shadow patterns... no nothing... and it's all the better off for it.
As Rich said, this shirt design was another that raised the bar in quality and looked cool - uber cool. Interestingly though, where France's great Euro 84 shirt has been recreated and reinvented as a tribute down the years, this one belonging to (West) Germany has not. Out of sheer reverence, perhaps? Why not. It really is in a class of its own and deserves to be held up as a shining example of superb football shirt design.
[John:] Apart from integrating the German national flag into a kit design - a design tactic that at the time was still relatively scarce - the strength of this shirt for me is its pure aesthetic quality. It just looks so damn good.
Of course by the very nature of the German national identity colour scheme and the fact that they have a nice white canvas on which to present them, they do have a considerable advantage. Still, adidas's execution of these various elements is simply exquisite (incidentally what was in the water at adidas's design headquarters in the '80s?! So many great designs!)
The shirt was brazen, bold and confident - a real move on from the country's traditional plain white shirts and a style that still clearly influences kits to this day.
The design was so perfectly suited to the German flag, it makes you wonder now if this masterful triple layered decoration was created originally for Germany and then rolled out throughout the adidas roster? If so, it was a shame that this triple layered colour block motif didn't make it to any British shirts, except for the odd tracksuit.
[Jay:] As we salivate at the thought of British clubs wearing the design element from the '88-91 West Germany shirt, it should be remembered that whilst its application on adidas tracksuits in 1989-90 was a less satisfying spinoff, it's one which enabled it to claim a remarkable treble of English league title (Liverpool), FA Cup (Manchester United) and World Cup (West Germany) that season. And popping up on Michael Knighton's sweatshirt as he jogged around Old Trafford doing keepy-up is an added bonus.
And from such inauspicious beginnings. Worn in the German-hosted Euro 88 tournament, Ronald Koeman treated the design with utter contempt when he - yes - mimed wiping his backside with it in the wake of the Netherlands' victory over their traditional rivals in their own back yard. At that point, that famous 'ribbon' could have been consigned to the dustbin of football kit history, but the Germans - Die Mannschaft and adidas both - elected to persevere with the creation.
But this isn't about, primarily, influence; it's about a football shirt being great, on impact and aesthetic levels. This shirt was groundbreakingly striking and has endured. It was also an early retail success story, with several versions (permutations were minor and related to manufacturing techniques) in long- and short-sleeved selling by the bucketload, along with mimicking t-shirts, tracksuits, jackets and travel bags.
Yes, that ribbon, on the famous white of Germany, teamed with the national pride of World Cup glory and unification, was embraced wholeheartedly. It gave us a great shirt. The greatest.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is it. Our compilation of the 50 Greatest Football Shirts Ever is complete. The full list can be viewed here, so all that's left is to thank each and every one of you that's left us a comment on our website, Facebook and Twitter throughout. We really enjoyed hearing your thoughts and opinions on the fifty shirts featured, and we hope the series managed to entertain, enlighten or inform - even if our selections didn't match up with your own! Finally, our grateful thanks also go to Jay from DesignFootball.com and John Devlin from TrueColoursFootballKits.com, both of whom provided us with all the support, insight, humour and, in John's case, superb illustrations we could ever have asked for! Without them, we simply couldn't have created the 50 Greatest Football Shirts Ever to the standards you've seen. Their contributions, and yours, have made this a truly great project, and we hope you've enjoyed it at as much as we have. Cheers! Chris and Rich
It's time for us to reveal the Second Greatest Football Shirt Ever, but which one will it be? So many iconic designs haven't even been mentioned in our countdown so far, and they can't all occupy the final two spaces of our list... so which shirt takes its place at Number 2? The answer is as follows:
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It's England's home shirt, worn during 2009 and 2010. Look up 'understated' in the dictionary and you'll find the above picture in the definition. A great football shirt can be defined in many ways; complexity of detail, use of colour, acknowledgement of tradition, originality of design, sheer modernity... but this one has its own clearly defined qualities. Here are our comments to hopefully explain why our second best shirt is really all-white...
[John:] So many shirts in our countdown have had their place earned due to their game-changing and innovative design direction, but none have ripped up the rule book and raised the bar (and any other similar cliche you'd like to throw in) as this superlative Umbro England shirt.
To say this was the most important kit in decades is no understatement and to anyone who dares to criticise the magnificent Umbro must have very short memories or know nothing about kit design to not appreciate the impact this shirt has had on the football world.
At the time, kits seemed to be going in one direction of ever increasing complexity, brash multi-coloured panels and tired, over-thought design – typical 'average' sportswear. In fact a purported 'leak' of the new England kit just before the unveiling of the real one followed all these tired stylistic references and caused murmurings of discontent.
The relief, closely accompanied by sheer wonderment when Umbro finally launched this shirt, was incredible.
Plain, simple, decent collar, decent cut (which spearheaded the ground-breaking 'Tailored by Umbro' concept where all players' kits were made to measure, yes even Peter Crouch's) was a welcome breath of fresh air amongst the cul de sac that kit design was heading in. It went back to basics and totally reinvented the concept of what a football shirt could and should be.
There was subtle details, and elegance throughout. You got the feeling that every stitch had meaning.
Yes, the unbelievers simply called it a 'polo shirt' but they totally missed the point and failed to see the impact this strip would have, and in fact still has, as many kits even today are still following its design direction.
For me, the shirt will always be at the pinnacle of what eventually proved to be a difficult time for Umbro, who under Nike's ownership eventually headed for a rapid downward turn in fortune. Perhaps their wings were burnt by this England kit? Could they ever hope to better it?
Some would say that perhaps never did.
[Jay:] This shirt, and the preceding template (used on number 49 in our countdown) are two sides of the same coin. The combination of a loosely cut garment, with needless knobs and whistles aplenty - and a-glaring - with its antidote, its antithesis, of a pared down, entirely function-driven, fitted and tailored piece of sartorial greatness is what me must express gratitude towards for every measured - in every sense - shirt we have today.
We do have to check ourselves, that we haven't bought into the hype too much. Umbro threw a lot of marketing into making us believe that 'Tailored By' was the solution to a problem not all of us realised we had, and it wouldn't be the first time that those dastardly ad men had seduced us. Well I've checked myself: an interview with Umbro designer of the time, David Blanch, seems more genuine and to make more sense - in senses both pragmatic and idealistic - even in hindsight, than most of today's publicity guff. There was a problem, and the England '09 shirt was the solution.
Part of the beauty of this release - and its accompanying range - was the recognition that not only were football shirts essentially being dipped in sprinkles at the time, but, in the case of international teams, numbers, names, competition patches and match-specific script were to be added too. It was all too much, so a minimalist shirt, on the face of it, allowed for the further embellishment (and required it on replica versions?) The reality is that the new England shirt had the accoutrements, but they were in the form of darts and cleverly curved side seams, both improving cut and effect.
Excess fabric was ditched to provide a contemporary slimmer fit, the collar - despite lacking a top button - was suitably neat and tidy, even if it provoked lazy Homer Simpson comparisons, and the crest, oh my God, the crest, was beefed up and textured in brightly coloured embroidery. Just as it always should have been.
For this shirt, and its influence, we will always bow down to Umbro's brilliance.
[Chris:]After years of gorging itself on gaudy designs and dubious colour combinations, every team needs some metaphoric sorbet to cleanse the palate. To put it another way, every team needs to release a shirt design that's plain and basic before returning to the world of the bizarre and ridiculous. What Umbro created in 2009 was the sweetest sorbet ever. Far from basic and plain in the best way you could imagine, this was a shirt that rolled back all those years of coloured panels, needless flashes and pretentious detail.
'Smart' doesn't do it justice. The styling and sharpness of the lines this shirt possesses takes it beyond that. It was a statement of intent on the part of the manufacturers as if to say to their competitors "Is that the best you can do?"
Much more than that, I cannot say because it's already been said above. It is in a distinct class of its own and by redefining 'less is more', it is easily deserving of a place in our Top 3.
[Rich:]There's very little I could say that hasn't already been covered above, but my personal take on this shirt is that it was an instant classic as soon as it was revealed. It's no secret I was not a fan of the previous shirt, having described it as someone holding a bag of shapes over a shirt, then sneezing into said bag then just sticking down whatever landed on the shirt. Therefore, it's no surprise I welcomed such a minimalist shirt, but even I was taken aback at just how minimal it all was. Aside from it being an all white kit, the shirt itself was a masterpiece of understated cool.
As every possible angle has already been talked about, I'll just add that the subsequent demise of Umbro was a bit of a double edged sword. Had they bowed out before this, the world may not have been so irked, but after this, the feeling the company had finally hit a rich vein of form only to be cut down in its prime not only hurt deeply, but also stoked discontent when Nike revealed their first shirt for the national team, despite it actually being a pretty solid design.
Looking back, the problem with an instant icon is it makes following it an almost impossible feat...and Umbro's final two England shirts were pale shadows of this great, somewhat diluting its lasting impact. Despite this, this remains one of the best England shirts of all time and indeed, the second greatest football shirt ever!
This shirt is part of The 50 Greatest Football Shirts Ever. The full list can be viewed here.
Forty-seven shirts down, and now just three to go in our 50 Greatest Football Shirts Ever countdown. Today, it's time to find out who has won our metaphorical bronze medal in our self-appointed valhalla of shirt design, and it's this...
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...the Netherlands home shirt that made as big an impact as the team wearing it during the Euro 88 tournament in West Germany. Worn by the Dutch in only their five games of that campaign, this was proof positive that adidas were truly breaking new ground back in the 1980's... but what specifically catches the eye of the 50GFSE panel?
Here's our thoughts on what makes this shirt Total Genius...
[Jay:] Whilst this geometric pattern was seen elsewhere in the adidas stable - notably carried by the USSR and West Germany - for whatever reason it is the Netherlands version which is both most recognisable and satisfying. This may be in part due to the Dutch success associated with the shirt, but the colour combination (orange, white and black) also seems to create a perfect balance.
Whilst complex sublimation had been seen before - see Denmark in 1986 - this really was a proto-1990's release. In fact, the precise, symmetrical employment of the pattern, rather than gratuitous plastering, even suggests thoughtful restraint the like of which became en vogue decades later.
The tastefully trimmed overlapping V-neck contrast collar, and the adidas logo and iconic KNVB crest in black (surely for reasons of clarity) facilitated the background pattern's purpose as a focal point whilst ensuring it wasn't an overbearing attention drain. The Dutch looked remarkable on their way to glory, but they still looked, first and foremost, Dutch.
[John:] If ever a kit defined a tournament it was this one as the sublime Dutch side clinched the 1988 European Championship with style and grace – qualities perfectly reflected in this beautiful jersey.
A forerunner of the crazy times to come and a real trendsetter, the heavily decorated fabric was hard to take in at first, so outrageous did it seem as it discarded the long-established solid colour approach to kits. But the blend of gradients and geometry created a classic.
[Rich:] If you're ever wondering how a shirt becomes not only an icon, but also a design classic, look no further than the Netherlands shirt of 1988. While plenty of iconic shirts achieved their status due to the occasion they were seen in - several World Cup winning shirts are regarded as classics but in terms of design, are nothing special - Holland 88 staked its claim very loudly and from the instant it seared into our retinas.
Worn for only one tournament, albeit for every single one of their matches (USSR, who had the same design, but in red, wore their white away kit in both the group stage meeting and in the Final), it arrived out of nowhere, smacked us all upside the head and left us all reeling. Sure, as Jay mentioned, plenty of other teams wore the same template (there are so many different colour versions of this shirt), and some are just as fondly remembered - West Germany's away is also regarded as a stunner - but it's the Dutch one that retains the fame....or infamy.
Why? Maybe because it was worn in all matches and so was consistently available in high profile outings; maybe because they won in it then never wore it again, creating a punch-to-the-face impact that was never allowed to fade; maybe because it adorned the backs of Van Basten, Gullit et al? Or maybe just because it was orange? Take a crazy design and apply it to a standard footballing colour and it lessens the impact. Render it in something a bit more out there and you have something that goes nuclear on your senses. Imagine a pink version this? Or maybe lime green? Instant notoriety!
And so it follows that, despite being nothing more than a vastly overused adidas template, the Netherlands shirts of 1988 rightly sits amongst the very best shirts ever!
[Chris:] As John mentioned earlier, any move away from a strong solid colour for any team is likely to be controversial, but this one was so imaginative as to be breathtaking. Like a window shattered into a hundred or more pieces, each one retained its gradient-filled lightness in a way that had never been seen before.
For me, the sight of this shirt during Euro 88 was one of those 'I was there' moments when you realise you're witnessing something ground-breaking. At a stroke, it rendered almost every other kit old-fashioned, so revolutionary was its design.
Yet for all its geometric interest and delicately coloured beauty, one very minor detail helps to make it a classic - namely the thin grey outline that each of those angular segments possesses. It may not seem like much, but it helps to define the make-up of why this shirt is so special. Without it, the whole thing looks like a wishy-washy load of faded bits. Brilliant execution and brilliantly conceived.
This shirt is part of The 50 Greatest Football Shirts Ever. The full list can be viewed here.
Stick out your thumb and hitch a ride, everybody - we're heading for Classic Shirt Territory with the latest entry in our 50 Greatest Football Shirts Ever countdown. Today we bring you the brilliant red home shirt worn by Denmark in 1986 and 1987.
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First worn in the Danes' final World Cup warm-up match against Poland in May of that year, it immediately made an impact with its creative use of pinstripes and contrasting halves, accompanied by the traditional Hummel chevrons running along the sleeves. But what makes this a superb example of football shirt design rather than garish monstrosity? The 50GFSE panel give you their thoughts...
[Chris:] If any shirt can be symbolised by the word 'flair', it's this one. With its pinstripes, halved sections and chevrons on the sleeves, it has all the ingredients to be a complete dog's dinner, yet remarkably it combines into a stunning whole.
I can remember seeing this for the first time during the 1986 World Cup and being amazed at its brilliant, modern-looking appearance. It just oozed class, as did the players that wore it. The brilliant part, however, was that it used less of Denmark's traditional red colour by distracting you with all the pinstripes and other details. Heck, even the navy blue piping along the collar and across the shoulders was wonderful to behold.
The smaller proportion of red soon became apparent when Denmark changed their shirt design again in 1987. A return to solid colour was inevitable, and it was only then that you realised how clever the two-tone shading of this shirt really was.
For me, this is exactly what football shirt design should be about: interesting detail, a good use of colour and original in its styling.
[Rich:]The insanity of late-80's / early-90's shirt design is usually regarded as starting with the Holland '88 shirt, but the seeds were sown two years before with the shirt Denmark worn at Mexico '86.
While this template has already been seen in the Top 50, this is the original (and still the best as some would say). While shirt technology at the time meant more and more intricate detailing was finding its way onto kits, the designs themselves were still relatively safe. Then along came Hummel and just blew everything else out of the water!
It's worth noting that the original shorts that went with this top were also halved, but with the blocks reversed, culminating in a design only a sociopathic harlequin would wear. Even today it's a design that would divide opinion, which after 30 years, surely says something about its impact. It may have been a template that got used over and over, but the Denmark incarnation is a bona fide classic... as demonstrated by the price they now fetch on eBay!
[John:]The only thing I really knew about the Danish side in the 80's was the presence of Jan Molby and Jesper Olsen in the side and the fact they always had superb kits, which were of course back then always supplied by their fellow countrymen, Hummel.
Back in the decade that style forgot (although interestingly as our line up reveals, this didn't apply on the football pitch) this ground-breaking design divided opinion almost as neatly as it divided the red and white on the shirt.
Thankfully now good sense prevails and this jaw dropping outfit is rightly regarded as a classic.
This shirt is part of The 50 Greatest Football Shirts Ever. The full list can be viewed here.
Our 50 Greatest Football Shirts Ever countdown has reached the last five - the best five shirts, according to the beliefs of the judging panel. For that reason and that reason alone, we thought we'd share all of our comments for each of the last five shirts, rather than letting one of us divulge our thoughts as a representative for the panel. With that in mind, we enter the home straight beginning with Shirt No.5 - the Liverpool home shirt worn between 1985 and 1987.
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Directly following the ground-breaking pinstriped design introduced in 1982, this adidas offering might have struggled to match the success of its predecessor, and yet it proved more than popular. So what were its redeeming features and why is it deserving of such high praise in our countdown? Here's what we thought...
[Rich:] The first ever football match I watched on TV was the 85/86 FA Cup Final, where the team, supported by half my family, lifted the trophy in this excellent shirt, To me it is the ultimate 80's football shirt - a classic V-neck with multi-coloured trim, super shiny fabric, a detailed shadow print, vibrant colour and finally a memorable, but not super-corporate, solid British sponsor. As if it wasn't perfect enough, adidas had their famous three stripes adorning only the shoulders, rather than running all the way down the sleeves... and once more were outlined in yellow, rather than just plain white. This shirt saw Liverpool do the double, though for the following season (after I'd abandoned them for Coventry... probably a coincidence), the blue half of Merseyside took the league title and some plucky upstarts won the FA Cup. The 80s... crazy times and super shirts!
[Chris:] I'll be honest. This isn't my favourite Liverpool shirt ever. That would be the one that preceded this - the famous 'pinstripes' kit created by Umbro. When this one arrived in 1985, however, it was like an acknowledgement that football kit design had reached full maturity. After the extravagant flair of the 70's and the tentative styles of the early 80's, adidas showed with this shirt that it was finally time to get serious about looking good on the field.
Everything about this shirt says 'grown up'. The shadow pattern, the detailed trim, the use of yellow as a generous nod to the Umbro away kit used between 1982 and 1985... it all embodied a big leap forward to leave behind those 'so yesterday' pinstripes. A fine shirt and one of Liverpool's greats.
[John:]As a young Liverpool fan when the news came out that the club had signed a deal with adidas, I could almost not comprehend that Umbro, who had accompanied the Reds throughout their glory days, would not be producing the team kit.
The anticipation to see what adidas would do with the famous red was almost too much to bear. When I first saw the strip though, unveiled via a double page-poster in Match magazine, I breathed a sigh of relief. It was a stunner. And the away and third kits that also appeared on the poster were pretty decent too.
Style personified - with the merest touch of yellow bringing to life the trim and the innovative Liver Bird and adidas trefoil logo shadow pattern, it was truly magnificent and, at least in my eyes, it was better than the Umbro kits that preceded it.
The task facing adidas in 1985 was huge but they passed with flying colours.
[Jay:] Aside from seconding the words of my esteemed colleagues, there's not a whole lot I can say about this shirt. adidas just simply got it right in the 1980s, and the subtle combination of white and yellow trim, along with definitive versions of the adidas logo and simple Liver bird ("L.F.C.") crest, with hindsight, propels this offering into the stratosphere of shirt design. adidas knew this, and added a - we'll assume knowingly - inaccurate recreation of this release to their Originals range a few years ago. That was disappointing, as I wouldn't want to change a single stitch on this masterpiece.
This shirt is part of The 50 Greatest Football Shirts Ever. The full list can be viewed here.
OK we're already into the Top 5 of the 50 Greatest Football Shirts Ever! and we're only just getting to chat about shirts 30-21, but hey, we're human and need holidays! These tans don't come out of a bottle ya know!
This time, Jay was unavailable so for baselayer fans out there (no-one!), you'll have to go elsewhere for your weird fetish! Deviants!
In the meantime, sit back and enjoy Chris, rich & John Devlin waffling on about shirts once more...REPRAZENT!
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So, from my list of shirts which initially received 2 votes, these were the ones that came so close...
And then there were the ones that were just rejected out of hand!
