Historical Football Kits

WFK "Best Toilet Book of 2011" Shock Horror

"Short, standalone stories, a hardback cover and loads of comedy value are FFT's requirements for a bog book and WFKOAT ticks all the boxes with its gruesome garb. As well as digging up some hidden shockers it confirms that kit designers in the early 90's were clearly deranged." (Four Four Two Magazine December 2011.)

Enhance your little footballers' room with a signed copy, yours for a trivial £9.99 + P&P from the HFK shop.

23 January: This season marks the 125th anniversary of the formation of Glossop North End and to mark the occasion the club has introduced this special commemorative shirt, based on the top worn when the team played in the First Dvision for one season in 1899-1900. It is this team that is featured in HFK's banner at the top of every page on the site. Incidentally, the gentleman wearing a button-hole and gazing proudly across the team from the far right of our banner is their chairman, Samuel Hill-Wood. The son of a succesful cotton magnate, Hill-Wood was captain of Derbyshire Cricket Club and funded the Glossop football team until the outbreak of World War One. Elected MP for High Peak in 1910, he was created a baronet in 1921 and presided over Arsenal during their first period of success in the mid 1930s. His descendants remain inextricably linked to Arsenal FC and when Glossop reached the FA Vase final in 2009, they were presented with a silver plate from the London club as well as the use of their training facilities.

Updates: Swindon Town (2011-12 FA Cup strip added).

19 January: Tim Ashmore recently passed on this interesting observation from Mark Wylie, curator of the Manchester United museum. Among the collection in his care is a minute book from 1934 that records that the FA had agreed to the club changing their registered "home" colours from red to "maroon and hoop" (sic) from 3 March of that year. These tops have been commonly described as "cherry and white" but Mark has confirmed there are no contemporary references to these terms. I am delighted to add this to the record and, in the process, have extensively reviewed our entries for United's Home and Away sections with the latest information from the superlative unitedkits.com, the site that Tim runs with Paul Nagel.

Euro 2012 Updates: Republic of Ireland (H) added, Poland updated.

6 January: Today we launch our Euro 2012 section as a work in progress. With many of the participating nations still to announce their playing strips, we encourage visitors to let us know as new kits are launched (but please no leaks). Once the tournament is underway we will post strips in the Match-by-Match sections, building up the definitive record of the competition.

Please take care to avoid wet paint in the new gallery and place children in the receptacles provided.

5 January: A very Happy New Year to you.

Today's updates: Newcastle United's (new shirt sponsor): Coventry City (2012 FA Cup strip added): Third Lanark (1959-60 added).

29 December: We have posted a few previously unrecorded Third Lanark strips today (1903-04, 1921-22, 1928-29, 1932-33, 1947-48, 1956-57, 1963-64). The photograph is of the 1921-22 team wearing comedy collars and comes from the rather good Third Lanark History website, from which much of this new information is sourced.

Thanks to research by Tony Sealey and John Mathews , the 1949-1955 entries on the Tottenham Hotspur Away Kit section have been slightly revised.

Peterborough United (1936-37 added). Replicas of Manchester City's 1989-90 shirt are now available.

23 December: Do look out for Blue is the Collar, a lavishly illustrated and detailed guide to Chelsea kits and memories (Sport Media 2011 £9.99). As reported on 20 October, HFK has provided graphics.

Current season updates: Wrexham (new shirt sponsor); Airdrie United (new 3rd strip).

18 December: It's always good to hear from old friends as the festive season approaches. Regular visitors will recall the splendid Dr Stefan Stamirov of the Medical University of Pleven in northern Bulgaria who designs his own ward gowns based on famous football shirts. Here Stefan models his latest creation, based on Leeds United's 1976-77 shirt, while he looms - but in a good way - over a colleague.

Updates: Heart of Midlothian (1971 change strip added to Iconic Away Kits section): Dumbarton (1988-89, 1993-95, 1995-96 detailing added): Bristol City (1957-58 added): Liverpool (1957-58 warm weather change kit added).

Finally for today, Neil Le Milliere writes to tell us about the London Exeter Exiles, who recently got together wearing treasured replica shirts. This led to Neil identifying a missing item for our Exeter City section (1986-89 added). Neil also supplied this photograph of the 1993-94 top, modelled for us by two Exiles. Intact versions of this shirt are, apparently, rather rare as supporters tended to remove the sponsors logo because it was in the colours of their West Country rivals, Plymouth Argyle.

15 December: HFK Research Associate Tony Sealey is spending the long winter nights researching obscure Spurs strips for us. Among his finds is this photograph taken at The Hawthorns in 1930-31. I believe these show the cashmere tops worn at the time in unprecedented detail. While the main body of the shirt would have been made from finely woven wool, this would not have been sufficiently robust for the the collars and crest, which appear to be made from white cotton. The contrast between the off-white cashmere and true-white cotton is evident. (Tottenham Hotspur August 1945 change, 1958-62 third added.)

2011-12 updates: Millwall (3rd), Walsall (3rd), Airdrie United (new sponsor/recycled shirt).

14 December: It is now clear that the replacement Plymouth Argyle strips due to be delivered in September have been cancelled by the new owners and these graphics have been removed.

This photograph from 1886 shows Dennis Hodgetts wearing the chocolate and blue shirts worn by Aston Villa at the time. Lee Gauntlett has identified the crest as being the Birmingham coat of arms from that period.

Newcastle United (1930-31 added; 1966-67 & 1967-69 change added); Darlington (1921-36 updated); Wolves (1947-48 added).

13 December: Apologies for the lack of activity over the past three weeks. This was due to a temporary loss of our broadband connection during a major hardware upgrade. After years of software conflicts and hardware failures, we have scrapped our steam-driven PC and content will now be brought to you minty-fresh from a brand-new Mac via, thanks to the Welsh Assembly Government, satellite link.

21 November: We have known for some time that in the summer of 1962, Tommy Docherty proposed introducing an all-blue strip at Chelsea but was over-ruled by the board who thought the new look too radical. Terry Morley has discovered this photograph of the team wearing the Doc's revolutionary outfit. It fell to Jimmy Hill's Coventry City to introduce the first set of matching shirts and shorts as part of his Sky Blue Revolution of 1962-63. Docherty got his way at the start of the 1964-65 season when the iconic all-blue strip with white socks first appeared.

There had, of course, been examples of teams wearing matching white shirts and shorts going back to Victorian times but it was not until nylon shorts in a range of colours became available in the late-Fifties that the now familiar one-colour strip became possible.

Other updates: Ipswich Town (current 3rd added), Hartlepool United (current 3rd added), Huddersfield Town (2011 charity kit updated): Southend United (2010-11 socks corrected): Aston Villa (1988-89 socks corrected).

11 November: The Hull City section has been revised with new crests (1947 & 1957), embossing details (1982-1997) and colour adjustments. AFC Bournemouth (crest 1936-74 revised).

2 November: Liverpool (1957-58 change kit added): Everton (2000-01 third shirt detail added): Aston Villa (1982-83 European Cup strip added): Hull City (2011-12 away kit updated).

1 November: Pictured on the left is the Barnsley side from 1927-28. The worn-looking red tops are typical of the period but the smart, probably brand new white change shirts are adorned with V necks. Although this design became commonplace in the late-Fifties, it first appeared in the Twenties but failed to catch on.

Manchester United (2011-12 European home kit added; 2007-08 third added; 2007-08, 2008-09 third kits amended): Arsenal (2006-07 third added): Ashington (1923-24 sock detail added): Birmingham (1919-22 socks confirmed): Blackburn Rovers (1923-24 amended): Blackpool (1951 FA Cup final crest amended): Bolton Wanderers (1953 FA Cup final crest added).

20 October: It is well established that Chelsea's first colours were taken from the Earl of Cadogan's racing colours but precisely what shade of blue these were has, until now, been unclear. Enquiries by HFK have revealed that this was in fact Eton Blue, an unusual shade of light, greenish blue worn by the famous Old Etonians club in the 19th century. As far as we know, this is the only instance of these colours appearing in the Football League. The photograph was taken on 1 August 1905 before the team had kicked a ball and shows their brand new strip to good effect.

Some changes have been made to the Chelsea Away Kit section thanks to input from Nik Yeomans who is helping in the production of a new history of Chelsea kits from 1960 to the present, "Blue is the Collar." HFK is proud to have provided the graphics for the book and we will let you know when it is due to be published.

In a similar vein, a note from Bruce Wright provides strong evidence that Queen of the South wore their familar royal blue shirts for the first time in May 1922, implying that the tops worn earlier (and shown in the photograph published on 12 October) were in fact the lighter blue inherited from the 5th King's Own Scottish Borderers, one of the clubs that amalgamated to form QoS in 1919.

We have finally been able to confirm shirt sponsorship for East Stirlingshire's current away strip. Other updates for 2011-12 include Brentford (A updated), Huddersfield Town (charity strip) and West Ham United (3rd).

Other updates: Crest histories revised for Bradford (Park Avenue) and Bradford City: Everton (1985-86 3rd, 1988-90 3rd added, 1992-93 crest corrected).

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