Historical Football Kits

 

The Definitive English and Scottish Football Kit Archive

historical football kits line up 2010The material on this site is copyright © Historical Football Kits, all rights reserved. Club crests and sponsors' logos are the intellectual property of their respective owners. For more details visit Copyright Information.

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Latest News & Updates

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An Announcement

As regular visitors will know, some time ago I took the decision to reduce the amount of new content added to the site. This was in part due to the ever-increasing complexity of new kit designs which were taking an inordinate amount of time to draw. As I am not getting any younger and have a long-term health condition I have taken the decision to further reduce my input to the site. This means that I shall no longer add new season kits. I will, however, continue to welcome contributions to the historical record.

I have not taken this decision lightly. It has been my privilege over the past 17 years to have curated material submitted by hundreds of contributors and I think it is time to focus on the site's core mission, which is to document football kits of the past.

29 February

scotland 1891Apparently a recent edition of Antiques Roadshow (not on my watchlist I have to say) featured three Scottish caps awarded to Rob Boyd, including this one for Scotland's match against Wales in March 1891. Tony Sealey sent in this screen grab, which includes a photograph of the team wearing an all-navy strip.

sunderland v portsmouth april 1976In 1973 Portsmouth dropped their traditional blue shirts, white shorts and red socks in favour of white shirts with two vertical blue stripes on the left, while the club crest was worn on the "wrong" side. At the end of the 1975-76 season, Admiral supplied them with a set of branded shirts shown here in their final match against Sunderland. Although the detail can't be made out in the photograph, Tony has confirmed with the Pompey History Society that these shirts featured a new crest that combined the familiar moon and star with a sword and anchor (symbolising the Army and Royal Navy). After losing against this game, Portsmouth were relegated to the Third Division and the white shirts were quietly dropped along with the new crest in favour of a more traditional strip. The sword and anchor motif reappeared in 1980 but was never popular with supporters.

bolton wanderers 1946-47Further research by Martin Nesbit confirms that Bolton Wanderers continued to wear their old crest immediately after the end of the Second World War and it was not untl 1951 that the redesigned version was introduced. The photograph is of the 1946-47 team and clearly shows the badge that first appeared in 1921.

Photo Credits: BBC, Sunderland AFC, Colorsport.

27 February

3Retro have added quite a lot of new stock to their online store and I have added deep links to the relevant club pages. You can use this link to view the new items New@ Retro. In the course of doing this I discovered that all links to UKSoccershop are currently broken. This is apparently because they have changed their affiliate marketing partner. I'm in the process of setting up an account with the new partner and once this is complete I'll start repairs. Watch this space for updates.

bradford city 1976-77Our old pal, Tony Sealey, has been busy poking around obscure bits of the interweb and looking into a few oddities for us. This photograph is of the Bradford City squad for 1976-77 probably taken pre-season. Two styles of shirt are in evidence: those with the central vertical panels were supplied by Litesome at the start of the 1975-76 season while those with the more widely spaced "braces" were, I had thought, a one-off worn in the FA Cup semi-final against Southampton in March 1976. Tony has found that these tops were worn in the previous round and in at last one league game and became first choice in 1976-77. The conclusion is that these new-look tops replaced the older design around March of 1976. So why are the players wearing a mixture of tops? It's most likely that the club did not have a full-set on hand when the photo was taken so kitted out some players in the older shirts.

Based on a description in the Tottenham Hotspur minute book from May 1986 I have the team shirts from 1886-1889 as mid-blue and white. However, fixture books that were sold at auction last December confirm that they were in fact light blue and white.

21 February

Once again I have to apologise for the very long hiatus that meant there have been no updates to the site for a long time. The past six months have been very challenging and I have been focussed on health and family matters.

Happily I'm now in a position to resume work on the site and will start by working through the contributions sitting in my inbox starting with the most recent of Ian McConnel's Scottish club corrections.

All entries from 2023 have been moved to the News & Updates Archive.

Heart of Midlothian (1991-92, 1992-93 detailing modified/added), Airdrieonians (1991-92 added), Rangers (1990-92 shorts detailing tweaked), Hamilton Academical (1991-93 detailing tweaked), Motherwell (1991-92 sock trim added), St Mirren (1991-92, 1992-93 collar and sock trim amended), Falkirk (1991-94 amended), Dundee United (1991-92, 1992-93 shirt and shorts trim corrected), St Johnstone (1991-93 shorts trim corrected), Partick Thistle (Aug-Dec 1991 added), Cowdenbeath (1991-93 collar trim, cuffs and jacquard print revised), Queen's Park (1989-92 Umbro logos added & collar trim revised).

mailton academical 1991-92Hamilton Academical (shown here celebrating winning the B&Q Trophy in 1992) are one of many teams that dropped distinctive, traditional shirts in favour of something a bit more radical during the Nineties. At least the scarves and silly hats partially obscure the sheer awfulness of the Matchwinner chevron design worn here.

Photo Credit: The Daily Record.

hibs v rangers january 1962This rather scruffy photograph of a game between Hibernian and Rangers was taken in January 1962. The point of interest is that Hibs are wearing long sleeved shirts with crew necks almost certainly for the first time. There is abundant photographic evidence that they continued to wear continental V neck shirts until 1964 so it is likely that the tops worn here were adopted for cold weather. Unlike the effete folk of Edinburgh, Glaswegians do not feel the cold so the 'Gers team are kitted out in short sleeves.

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