[50GFSE] #32 & #31 - USA 1994 Home & Away Shirts by adidas

Some things in life are great, not so much vicariously, but because something else exists (also consequently great). For example, certain film trilogies - you can watch one of the series but you enjoy it, generally, with the knowledge of the two others and their content - Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy - natch - and the careers of Blur and Oasis - both bands were bound for stardom but achieved greatness through dovetailing. Y’know what, the Holy Spirit wouldn’t be all that without the Father and the Son either.

Numbers 32 and 31 in our list demonstrate this principle. The two USA shirts worn at the USA '94 World Cup in the USA - what I'm getting at is "U-S-A! U-S-A!" - carry enormous merit in their own right, but it is as a pair, a tag team referencing the American national flag, that they nail it.

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It is perhaps incongruous that we place the Home shirt at number 32. Not only is this committing the traditionalists' cardinal sin of placing elevated importance on the change shirt rather than the ostensible first choice colours, but it also means we discuss Old Glory's stripes before its stars. In fact, the only benefit of this ordering is the agreeable flow of this article's title.

Because, yes, the USMNT Home shirt in 1994 was actually the wavy red and white striped example, and not the "denim" starred version worn in the United States' three group games. With the latter so notorious, not a lot of people know that, and herein lies a true injustice.

Constantly in its other half's shadow, like Victoria in relation to David Beckham, few people realise how refined and knowing the perceived lesser partner is. With subtly waved stripes suggesting the fluttering of the flag of the United States of America, and this theme echoed on the collar and cuffs which had been trimmed more conservatively on contemporary equivalents, this marvellous twist on a perennially obstinate habitué of kit styles - the immovable vertical stripes - would actually also have been a fabulous way to outfit CD Guadalajara (Chivas) of Mexico.

However, the fact that this shirt is my own personal favourite of the two is a moot point - and the minutiae of Chris, Rich, John and I's decision-making processes is not something I'll bore you with - as there's no "I" in "equally and mutually complementary dual component release football jerseys". The Home without the Away is not nothing - far from it - but the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.



The Away - that shirt - has been written about in great detail elsewhere, but suffice to say it is one of the most controversial shirts ever, certainly in purist circles*. The all-American denim stylings (in reality a sublimation effect on a shirt similarly densely textured to its Home collaborator) appalled many but continue to excite collectors and kit historians to this day. But its importance goes far beyond its '90s exuberance and Luddite-goading, as it carried the starred side of a very special coin.

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The famous "denim" shirt and the criminally underrated striped Home represented not just the US Soccer Federation, but also the American nation as it dealt with the pressure of entertaining - in every sense - and this inseparable duo were designed to inspire and tug at the heartstrings of the US public and get the rest of the world on board. The Away had the stars, the Home had the stripes, and together they waved over the land of the free and the home of the brave.

As adidas's partner, Fifa, took its showpiece tournament to a previously insufficiently tapped market, the German manufacturer made one last marketing statement - with several beneficiaries - before the USSF contract was taken over by Nike.

Two shirts, one mission. As far as football shirt design goes: mission accomplished.

*The purists really would have been up in arms had the shirt been paired with a denim-styled pair of shorts trialled in a game prior to the World Cup. Football wasn't ready for double denim on the pitch just yet and Home plain blue shorts and rich red Aways were used, and swapped, at the tournament proper.



Written by Jay, resident blogger on DesignFootball.com.

Jay can be found on Twitter and DesignFootball.com are on Facebook and Twitter.

This shirt is part of The 50 Greatest Football Shirts Ever. The full list can be viewed here.

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Soccer Monthly (No. 1, September 1978)

"Produced by the same team as that behind the widely read weekly magazine SHOOT", Soccer Monthly aimed to provide some weightier reading matter for football fans of all ages. In reality, it was most fly over the heads of young readers or their older brothers, appealing mainly to their dads, in all probability. There was text - LOTS of text - to be read, and were it not for the free wallchart given away in issue 1, it's hard to imagine many young kids being excited by that prospect.

That's not to say there was a lack of effort being made by the writing staff, many of whom were 'top names' from Fleet Street. Every article crammed into its 62 pages seemed thorough to the point where you feel it could have filled the entire magazine on its own, were it not for some judicious editing.

Opening with an article by James Lawton called 'Money Can Buy Success', we get our first taste of the many sprawling, rambling features that were to come. It takes the ever-increasing transfer fees for top players as its subject, but never really reaches much of a conclusion, other than suggesting some managers have better luck in getting good players in return for a huge outlay.

'See You Later - In Mexico or Moscow' by John Moynihan is even more discursive. Amounting to little more than an essay on superfans that follow their team all over the globe, the text is flabby, awkward and largely lacking in insight.

Other articles manage to provide a detailed profile of teams ('A Century of Magic' about Manchester United) or individuals ('Can [Ron] Greenwood's Dream Become A Reality?'), but even these items struggle slightly to balance useful knowledge with unnecessary waffle.

An interesting context for all this wordage is the 1978 World Cup, which permeates many of the pages of this first edition of Soccer Monthly. Clearly, the action seen in Argentina only a few months previously was an exciting counterpoint to the rigours of the Football League, and there was much comment on how the two compared.

'What Have We Learned From The World Cup?' suggests that fans never get to see their favourite clubs adopting the dynamic playing styles of international football, as if that's what fans always expect:

"...Will the coaches, managers and players who watched the 1978 World Cup Finals return to domestic football with the same determination to emulate what they have seen?  Past World Cups have also excited and delighted fans and footballers alike. But too often, once the tournament ended, the initial enthusiasm waned. Supporters, hoping to see new innovations at club level, were disappointed."

Personally, I doubt there were too many West Brom or Derby fans expecting their team to adopt the 'Total Football' style of Holland or the speedy counter-attacking style of Argentina in the wake of the 1978 tournament. For those that were, however, a reason for this supposed lack of commitment to change was provided two pages later. It turns out that national team tactics are different to domestic club tactics, and therefore players find it difficult changing from one style of play to the other. Well that's that little misunderstanding sorted, then.

Elsewhere, Peter Batt ("that well-known, irreverent Fleet Street columnist who hits hard... with a smile") used a whole page to criticise TV pundits before admitting that deep down, he liked them really.

"When the World Cup screening hours were finally totted up, they amounted to a staggering 120. That means that between them, the combined TV commentators and chatter-uppers talked us into, through, out of and back over what was the equivalent of almost two full season's fixtures for a league club" said Batt. Clearly he hadn't had a chance to read through the finished first issue of Soccer Monthly yet.

Among the copious accounts of football's vintage era where players like Dixie Dean and Jackie Milburn loomed large, the two most interesting pieces were saved for the modern-day football of 1978.

'Wigan Get Their Sums Right' was an enlightening summary of how, through diligent accounting, Wigan Athletic gained their place in the Football League Fourth Division. It happened in June 1978 when Southport finished in 91st position in the Football League for the third season running. Having been re-elected on the first two occasions, they were unable to retain their place on the third, whereupon Wigan Athletic took their spot.

According to the Soccer Monthly article, this came as a result of non-league teams being better organised in their application for a league place: "Where they once suffered because too many clubs applied for election at the same time and wasted votes, they now put forward two nominations - one from the north and one from the south." Such was the parlous state of Southport, even Bath City (the southern nomination) picked up more votes in the first ballot than Southport got in the second.

But why were non-league clubs being looked upon more favourably when it came to election time? "Staggering as it may seem, there are non-League clubs in business today whose balance sheets at the end of a season put many League clubs to shame" said the article. Arthur Horrocks, managing director of a Wigan travel firm explained it thus: "We knew what was required. So we trimmed our expenses and scrapped the reserve team. Even the age-old custom of entertaining visiting directors after a match was examined and we decided to pay such expenses out of our own pocket."

The age-old custom of the 'old pals act' endlessly bailing out debt-ridden League clubs appeared, therefore, to be coming to an end, but alas this turned out to be a false dawn. No further clubs lost their place in the Football League in such circumstances until automatic promotion and relegation was introduced in 1986.

'Transatlantic Francis' highlighted an altogether different challenge for League teams back in the day, namely how to stop their best players signing for NASL clubs. In the case of Birmingham City, the answer was to allow a player of Trevor Francis' quality to be loaned out for a short spell.

Francis was still one year away from his ground-breaking £1 million move to Nottingham Forest, but back in the summer of 1978, many Birmingham fans thought his St Andrews days were over. As it turned out, his manager, Jim Smith, thought it better that he headed Stateside to earn a big summer wage and return to the Midlands shortly after the resumption of the new Football League season.

This he did, but not before soaking up all the adulation that the NASL had to offer with his new club, Detroit Express: "The crowd have been fabulous to me at Detroit. They come over and say a lot of nice things after the game and really seem to appreciate what I try to do on the field. Every time I get the ball, the commentator goes crazy and calls me 'Trevor Francis, Superstar.'"

At the age of only 24, Francis was enjoying the best of both worlds on either side of the Atlantic, but his life was to change immeasurably in February 1979. Brian Clough wanted a star striker to boost Nottingham Forest's push for European glory, and so it was that Trevor Francis returned to the UK as the first ever £1 million transfer between two English clubs.

Birmingham's fans were right to fear their hero's imminent departure, but Francis' star was clearly in the ascendancy. Soccer Monthly, meanwhile, had at least captured a brief snapshot of the man at a critical point in his career, and in so doing went some way to redeeming itself in what was a far from perfect first issue. Unfortunately, much like Trevor Francis at Birmingham, the magazine was also to be short-lived. During 1980, it was incorporated into Shoot! like so many other failed publications and shortly after was never to be seen again.

Soccer Monthly - a curious mish-mash of articles aimed squarely at the older reader, but often lacking the quality writing they demanded.

-- by Chris Oakley

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[50GFSE] #33 - Olympique de Marseille 2011-12 Away Shirt by adidas

If I had my way, this shirt would have been much higher up the list... probably not Top 10, but somewhere just outside. This is the trouble with democracy - you have to take other people's opinions into account.

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Rather than be a weakness, I believe this divisiveness is one of this shirt's greatest strengths. With kit life-cycles now generally being no longer than one season, we live in a world with thousands of forgotten designs... kits that did the job, but passed us by, never to be remembered.

On the flip side, we have shirts such as Warrior's Liverpool 'Horace goes skiing' / Space Invader efforts. Truly divisive shirts, albeit with the majority in the 'burn it' camp, but even now, several seasons later, we still remember them. Anyone recall the LFC away shirt from the season before? Or after?

And so it came to be that, despite being one of my all time favourite shirts, it languishes here at 33.

As for the shirt itself, the idea is certainly not new. Quite a few shirts have had similar prints. 1860 Munich and Fenerbahce both have shirts in their locker with all-over prints bearing imagery from the club or town's culture, albeit as the inside print in a reversible shirt... so what makes this one my favourite?

Aside from the fact that blue is my favourite colour and I think gold works beautifully with it (the Italy '06 shirt with its mid / dark blue hues and gold numbering was the one that rekindled my love of shirt design), this outfit arrived at a time when French clubs were getting some truly outrageous designs. Adidas, while giving English clubs mostly dull templates, were serving up some truly original (some would say awful) shirts - in particular Lyon and Marseille - and this remains my favourite of that era.

Rendered in a gorgeous tone of blue, with all trim, right down to the crest and Adidas logo, in gold, it has a luxury (some would say gaudy, but they would be wrong) feel to it. But what makes it for me is that print. Depicting images of the club's and moreover, its fan's cultural heritage, it turns a run of the mill shirt into something special... though clearly not that special for John, Chris and Jay.

Bah humbug!



Written by Rich Johnson (The Football Attic).

This shirt is part of The 50 Greatest Football Shirts Ever. The full list can be viewed here.

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[50GFSE] #34 - Rangers 1987-90 Home Shirt by Umbro

Often in the world of football kit design, the basic, perhaps primitive ideas of yesteryear are dismissed as being too old-fashioned or simplistic. This should never happen, for today's kits have all evolved from those same ground-breaking designs. It's the responsibility of all of us to remember the best of what went before.

This is certainly true of Rangers' home shirt, worn for the last few years of the 1980's. As had been the case since at least the mid-1970's, Umbro were the manufacturers, but here, at last, their latest design was heading in a new, dynamic direction.

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In the few years leading up to 1987, the famous blue Rangers shirt had started to look a little tired, relying on a couple of Umbro’s less inspiring templates for any real excitement. Now, they had a beautiful yet simple checker-board shadow pattern with merely a thin strip of white piping to offset it on the shoulders. There was also a new collar - a round neck with button-up fastening as seen on the England home kit of the same era. Again, understated, but beautifully executed.

The master stroke, however, lay in that shadow pattern. Subtle enough as to not be a coloured feature in the traditional way, it was noticeable from virtually any angle, almost all of the time. Take a look at any Rangers photograph from the era and you’ll see that repeating pattern of alternately shaded squares. It became the main feature of the shirt despite only being a result of the fabric being weaved in different directions.

Other shadow patterns from the late-1980s weren't quite so distinctive; too slight to register on the consciousness of football fans. This one, however, reflected the light perfectly, demanding to be noticed and gaining everyone’s full attention.

As if to reinforce the quality of the design, a succession of quality players were seen wearing it: Graeme Souness, Jimmy Nicholl, Mark Hateley, Davie Cooper, Terry Butcher, Trevor Francis, Ray Wilkins… If ever a shirt was going to get a huge amount of exposure, this was it, and yet the shirt sold itself effortlessly without their help.

In closing, I'm proud to admit that I was the proud owner of a Rangers shirt in my late teens. I wasn't a Rangers supporter, although I did once select the Ibrox club as my favourite Scottish team from those attached to my Shoot! League Ladders. No, for me the Umbro checker-board shirt was a purchase made out of pure admiration for the style it embodied. I wore it while playing football with my mates at the local park, and it made me feel grand. In so saying, I can think of no better tribute to this wonderful football shirt.


 
Written by Chris Oakley (The Football Attic).

This shirt is part of The 50 Greatest Football Shirts Ever. The full list can be viewed here.

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[50GFSE] #35 - Manchester United 1992-94 Home by Umbro

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Folk are often sceptical about how much influence a kit can have over the fortunes of a team. However I've seen too many examples where a good looking outfit could arguably be seen to play a part in raising confidence levels within a side to dismiss this thinking. Similarly when a new kit supplier arrives with a kitbag full of new ideas, after a long period with a previous incumbent they can be like a breath of fresh air that can also inspire and change for better the fortunes of a stagnating team.

I'm not stating as fact that both these kit situations were key in Manchester United clinching their first league title for 26 years in 1992-93 (and the inaugural award of the then newly rebranded ‘Premier League’) but I certainly feel they played their part. As I've often been told by kit designers through the years, when a team looks good, they play good.

By 1992, United had been kitted out by adidas for 12 years and despite some nice enough designs along the way, the relationship did appear to be going stale. Simultaneously, the club were also struggling to get their hands on that all-important league trophy that had eluded them for so long. But with Alex Ferguson’s young side gathering strength season upon season, the final piece required in the Old Trafford puzzle was an absolute humdinger of a kit to spur them on to glory. Up stepped Umbro who absolutely stormed it with one of the greatest shirts in United’s history and one that was the starting point for an era of almost unrivalled success.

The early '90s were witness to a post-modern acknowledgement of past football fashions that complemented the technological advances and contemporary styles of the day. Out went the sleek, modernist approach that defined the '80s and in came proper old-fashioned collars and button-up plackets, inspired by kits of yore. In United’s case, though, Umbro pushed the retro feel even further and even introduced a lace-up collar – a style that in 1992 had last been seen regularly in football 60 years previously.

Combine this with the flamboyant, baggier shirt sizing that was widespread in fashion both on and off the pitch at the time, liberally decorate the fabric with a 3D geometric jacquard weave of the club’s initials, add the familiar and iconic Sharp logo and sprinkle just the right amount of red and black trim, and you have yourself a bona fide classic kit. One that was fit for champions.


 
Written by John Devlin, founder and illustrator of TrueColoursFootballKits.com.

John can be found on Twitter and True Colours is also on Facebook.

This shirt is part of The 50 Greatest Football Shirts Ever. The full list can be viewed here.

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[50GFSE] #36 - Watford 1985-88 Home Shirt by Umbro

Thanks to its combination of colours (how does the rhyme go again... yellow, black, red and green should never be seen?) this Watford shirt shouldn't work. The fact that it does, even as it teeters on the edge of an horrific colour clash, is testament to its greatness.

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Sponsor's logo aside, the kit is one of pure class and is another one of those designs that’s proved to be a forerunner of today's outfits thanks in main to the brazen red and black colour bar placed prominently across the chest, divided neatly with a thin yellow stripe. Quite a difference from the kits of the day that, in the main, featured just one primary shirt body colour.

It was a superb Umbro design that wasn't widely taken up by their roster but later, quite rightly due to its very effective way of accentuating a team’s colour scheme, found life in their teamwear catalogue.

Although recent years have seen Watford favour simply yellow and black as their primary colour combo, for me a large dollop of red (as was the clubs penchant in the '80s) is what really makes a Watford strip really buzz although arguably it doesn't sit comfortably with the yellow and black implication of the 'Hornets'.

The jersey also features that trademark of many mid-80s designs, namely the multi-trimmed V-neck and cuffs. In this case, the fact that the neck and cuffs are the same colour as the shirt just adds to the glamour of the jersey. Glamour - with all due respect, not a word you’d generally associate with Watford (apart from the patronage of Sir Elton, of course), but prove what benefits and strength a well considered and carefully designed strip can bring to a team's visual identity.

Back to the sponsor though... As mentioned earlier, in theory the inclusion of the Solvite logo in its corporate green should spoil the shirt, but in my view its this colour clash that helps give the shirt an added dimension. And it should be remembered, of course, that most shirt sponsors logos in the early-mid '80s were simply adapted to fit in with the colour scheme of their host team.

Thanks to this brave colour decision, all parties manage to come out of the deal with their visual identity and integrity intact, plus the sponsor gets maximum stand-out on the shirt (just imagine how a black logo would have visually disappeared under the chest colour bar).

Time can often change opinions of the aesthetic decency of a football shirt, though. At the time of its launch, its possible that the green Solvite branding may have upset supporters as interestingly it appears replicas were sold mainly without the Solvite logo. Their loss!


 
Written by John Devlin, founder and illustrator of TrueColoursFootballKits.com.

John can be found on Twitter and True Colours is also on Facebook.

This shirt is part of The 50 Greatest Football Shirts Ever. The full list can be viewed here.

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[50GFSE] #37 - Brighton & Hove Albion 1985-87 Home Shirt by adidas

As I hinted at in my write-up for the French 1980-84 shirt (number 38 in our run-down for those who missed it) It seems to me that adidas have always saved their best designs for the continent. It's certainly the case today where the flair and glamour of their European strips far overshadow creatively the more sober designs we see in the UK.

However, if I can take you back 30 years to a small club on the south coast of England... there was one set of strips that threatened to buck that trend.

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They belonged to Brighton & Hove Albion of the Second Division, and as far as I know their incredibly striking outfits were not worn anywhere else in the UK and were seldom seen in Europe, come to that.

It was a design that, lets be honest, remarkably wouldn't look out of place today amongst Nike and Puma's bold colour-block kits that are the current flavour of the month. The v-neck was identical to the one that formed part of the club's previous shirt with the merest suggestion of red adding a nice counterpoint to the blue and white. The main visual element of the shirt, though, were the three horizontal panels across the shoulders that were paired with a series of horizontal pinstripes positioned further down the jersey.

At the time, any shirt adornments were always pretty regular in format so this imbalance of proportion really helped the shirt stand out. Brighton have traditionally favoured blue and white stripes but since 1980 had worn solid blue shirts, so introducing a larger proportion of white back into the design, albeit at 90 degrees, must have gone some way to appeasing the Goldstone Ground faithful.

The origin of the design, and its puzzlingly few outings worldwide is unclear, the result being that its low profile has led it to being one of the most underrated kits of the '80s. The other most notable example of this design was sported by Anderlecht in the 1984 UEFA Cup Final against Spurs. Their version of the kit included an additional chest band that seamlessly led into a whole set of horizontal pinstripes running down the entire length of the shirt. Presumably it was decided that this impeded the clarity of sponsors logos and club badge (a fact that seems to have deserted the mindsets of many contemporary kit designers!) and these were removed from the Brighton shirt leaving a nice clear presentation area.

Two sponsors graced this fine, fine shirt – Phoenix Brewery in 1985-86 and the eternally humorous NOBO the following year, which just goes to show that having a double entendre as a sponsor still didn't manage to detract at all from one the classiest adidas kits to ever grace the Football League.


Written by John Devlin, founder and illustrator of TrueColoursFootballKits.com.

John can be found on Twitter and True Colours is also on Facebook.

This shirt is part of The 50 Greatest Football Shirts Ever. The full list can be viewed here.

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[50GFSE] #38 - France 1980-84 Home Shirt by adidas

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Forgive me for taking a slightly anglophilic approach as I look back at this beautiful France home kit, worn from 1980 to 1984 by the likes of Michel Platini, Jean Tigana and Dominque Rochteau.

Although designs such as this may have been common on the continent in the early 1980s, in the UK at the time this manner of football clobber was the very peak of foreign glamour and mystery. Especially when you consider so many British contemporary kits of the era were still stuck in the 70s.

Adidas, who to be fair were only relative newcomers to the football apparel market by 1980, were clearly enjoying a golden age and looking back now could seemingly do no wrong with their designs. But what made their strips of this era, and this shirt in particular, so special?

One word - pinstripes.

Pinstripes didn’t really arrive in the UK until the following year so to see this adornment on previously plain colours was tremendously exciting! To see them in different colours AND then also continuing on the collars was almost too much to comprehend. Dual colour pinstripes never really took off to a great extent in England for some reason and seeing them on collars was rarer than a Balotelli goal for Liverpool.

Another key aesthetic element was the enhancement of the collar with a vital ingredient of a contrasting white insert panel that accentuated the self colour of the collar and helped give the shirt a touch of Gallic swagger.

The traditional French tricolore rendering of the Adidas three stripes,  the low-slung FFF badge, dainty Adidas logo (minus text) and slim fit all enhanced the shirt’s greatness.

This shirt was actually only worn in a long-sleeved version with a much more sober white v-neck prefered for the short-sleeved incarnation. However, by the 1982 World Cup, a more faithful rendition of this shirt emerged with the white insert replaced by a V-neck, presumably to combat the Spanish summer heat.

Its a peach of a shirt that looks as good now as it did then when it symbolised the difference between the panache of European football fashions compared to ours over in Blighty.



Written by John Devlin, founder and illustrator of TrueColoursFootballKits.com.

John can be found on Twitter and True Colours is also on Facebook.

This shirt is part of The 50 Greatest Football Shirts Ever. The full list can be viewed here.

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[50GFSE] #39 - USA 1992-94 Home Shirt by adidas

One of the most seismic shifts in kit design occurred in 1991. Adidas, of Trefoil logo fame and enduring sleeve stripes - with very few exceptions to this rule on football shirts - dispensed, overnight, with both of these immediately recognisable elements.

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The inception of the “adidas EQUIPMENT” logo, and related bold shirt styling, shocked sportswear and football fans alike. My memory of this drastic changeup was that it began with the largely sublimated 1991-92 Liverpool shirt, but this may be subjectivity rather than fact. Regardless, it was a staggering development, and one that took its time to settle.

That settling process was aided by the second generation of these “over-shoulder bar-stripes” shirts, and amongst these was the United States of America (USMNT) 1992 Home. With sublimation dispensed with and replaced with cut out stripes mounted onto the shoulder, and a newly raised adidas Equipment logo in a central position on the V collar, this shirt was a more substantial affair than the first incarnation. This one was to be taken seriously.

As it turns out, the USA had worn this style - complete with the second gen improvements - way back in the summer of 1991, albeit with an older POTUS-alike crest, notably in a friendly against Sheffield Wednesday in Philadelphia. I have no idea how or why the US team managed to carry this version so early, but they’re very lucky to have done.

Because, befitting its inclusion in our countdown, the shirt was wonderful. The alternating patriotic stripes - blue/red/blue - contrasted strikingly with the stark white (sans-watermark), whilst the black adidas logo adds a certain sobriety to the appearance. The new national side badge wasn’t to everyone’s taste, but it was simple and functional and didn’t remove the focus from the inspired application of a controversial template.

With hindsight, there is an exciting edge to admiring of all of the early Equipment (or “Performance” logo) releases due to the knowledge that most competition regulations today would ban branding of that ball park of footprint. But, even adding this spice, so few of these, in effect, experimental and guinea pig manifestations of the philosophy really stand the test of time.

The USA 1992 shirt does. It’s not the only included example worn in a victory over England, as it happens, but it retains distinctive aesthetic glory to complement that famous win.



Written by Jay, resident blogger on DesignFootball.com.

Jay can be found on Twitter and DesignFootball.com are on Facebook and Twitter.

This shirt is part of The 50 Greatest Football Shirts Ever. The full list can be viewed here.

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[50GFSE] #40 - Athletic Bilbao 2011-12 Away Shirt by Umbro

This isn't the first time I've written about this particular shirt (incidentally, I had also written about the France Techfit shirt previously, here) and it’s often interesting how time passing alters the way we feel about a design.

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Please don’t misunderstand me; I still love the Athletic Club 2011-12 Away shirt as much as I did when it was released, and became iconic in double-quick time. The difference is the context: back then I was enamoured with the fashion for football shirts with some kind of a chest band/stripe, but hindsight tells us this was little more than a fad. The Athletic shirt, on the other hand, has stood the test of years passed.

The twin stripe effect of the Umbro template is undoubtedly striking. The red and white on a green base immediately brings to mind the Basque Country’s ikurrina, which proportionally-speaking it has no right to. The colour combination could just as easily evoke memories of Christmas time, but somehow the desired effect is achieved.

Indeed, the same template was carried by Scottish club Rangers in their last season before their liquidation, and if it is to follow that their equivalent styling was based on the British Union Flag then it failed. Sometimes, we must deduce, a template is exactly what a particular palette and crest have been waiting for, and, along with the local sponsor(‘s logo) and the local governmental leaf patch on the sleeve, this shirt is a great example of such a thing.

This shirt appeared during Umbro’s most recent golden era and sold out very quickly - you’ll struggle to find even second hand examples today - so has certain hipster credentials. And deservedly so, but that is not to say its rarity is the draw; the shirt is a masterpiece from its neat granddad collar right down to the “Tailored By” hem insert along the side.

Of course a certain victory at Old Trafford - where black shorts and socks provided a further pleasing twist - will elevate this shirt’s historical impact even further, but putting this aside, and even the nationalistic Basque connotations of the colouring, this design is neat and tidy as well as being adequately striking, and remains a classic even in the midst of Athletic’s waning cachet.



Written by Jay, resident blogger on DesignFootball.com.

Jay can be found on Twitter and DesignFootball.com are on Facebook and Twitter.

This shirt is part of The 50 Greatest Football Shirts Ever. The full list can be viewed here.

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