Room 101- The Worst Football Kits Ever
A collection of the worst football kits ever inflicted on the long suffering fans. It is no coincidence that most of these are from the 1990s, the decade that style forgot. There have been, of course, many change strips that were worse than the kits shown here but these are beyond the scope of this site. To nominate your own personal choice, send me an e-mail naming the club and dates with up to 35 words explaining your choice.
Hummel introduced these complicated halved shirts with fine stripes after the Danish national side wore a red and white version in the 1986 World Cup finals. Coventry and Southampton wore similar kits. |
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This Yorkshire club has always been associated with no-nonsense, plain red shirts, aside from this bizarre creation dating from 1989-90, known as the "star-strip."
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In the 1990s Birmingham wore some odd kits but none odder than this all-blue ensemble with multi-coloured paint splashes. The kit was ditched before the end of the season along with the board. |
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Bournemouth wore some attractive red and black striped kits during the 1990s but 1992 was an exception, with this shirt with its odd chevrons.
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City have never been afraid to innovate with their traditional claret and amber stripes.
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Striped shirts have been popular for over 100 years but no-one had previously thought to combine striped shirts and shorts. Here's why.
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Combining their traditional quarters with their older stripes was probably a mistake. Fans described this as the Tesco Carrier Bag kit.
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Chelsea and French manufacturer Le Coq Sportif are generally associated with elegant kits. In the early 1980s, however, good taste went out of the window.
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In 2001, Chester were at the foot of the Conference despite their controversial owner introducing this new kit in an attempt to rebrand the club. In October both the owner and this kit were ditched. |
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Chesterfield have always been fairly conservative in their choice of kits, at least until this effort with fading stripes.
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Coventry's infamous Talbot kit was an attempt to get round the regulations that limited the size of sponsor's messages on shirts by designing the entire kit around the car manufacturer's logo.
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This variation on Darlo's traditional hooped jersey might have been best left on the drawing board.
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An extraordinary variation of Rovers' hooped shirt, in which the colours run into each other.
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The introduction of a white yoke proved deeply unpopular with the fans and this kit was dropped after only one season.
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Love it or hate it, there is plenty going on in this kit, which manages to combine most of the combinations of blue and white that the club has ever played in.
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It's hard to imagine why the Terriers abandoned their traditional elegant stripes for this concoction.
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"We play in amber and black and are called the Tigers. I know, let's have a tiger print shirt." A contender for the most truly awful shirt of all time.
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Several clubs adopted this chequered pattern for their change strips but only Orient were bold enough to feature it as a first choice kit. Someone must have liked it because it was revived in 2001. |
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Luton's blue and orange period really got out of hand with this kit, described by contributor Simon Darnell as a reconditioned shell suit.
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Designers have real trouble coming up with new variations on the traditional striped shirt. You can make them broader or more narrow. Or, as in this strip, you can have both. |
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The Cobblers have never been afraid to experiment with novel designs.
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Norwich succumbed to the fashion for "paint fleck" design but enjoyed some of their finest moments in Europe wearing this kit. Known by fans as the "bird poo" kit.
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In 1966 The Latics abandoned their distinctive traditional striped kit in favour of this gaudy contrivance of orange, blue and white. |
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A strange way to combine black and white.
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The irregular striped effect on the shirt is produced by tiny chevrons, lined up vertically in irregular groups. Perhaps it looked good with jeans.
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Odd swirls and flashes make this Olympic Sports designed kit a real oddity. Similar kits were sported by Scarborough and Southend.
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Normally Errea produces attractive, well designed kits, as one would expect from an Italian company. Not this one though.
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After playing in white, blue and gold then all-red, The Iron returned to their traditional claret and blue with a bang. Or should that be a clang? Iron - clang - see what I did there? Fans, however, regard this as a landmark kit. |
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Another variation on a stripe theme.
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Oh dear. Shirts were cut from large sheets of printed fabric and as a result, the pattern on each one was unique.
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Sportswear design company Pony developed the large "tick" as their trademark and it didn't look too bad on plain shirts. Stripes were another matter.
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If your computer screen looked like this you'd replace it. One of the true horrors in the collection.
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This ill judged attempt to reconceive a much loved traditional shirt met with universal hostility from fans and was abandoned after a single season.
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Yet another attempt to reinvent tradition. This oddity lasted two seasons before Sunderland returned to conventional red and white striped shirts with black shorts.
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This is one of several red and black extravagently trimmed kits worn by the swans in the first half of the 1990s, before sanity prevailed.
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An interesting take on Torquay's blue, white and gold that might look more at home on the rugby pitch.
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Danish company Hummel arrived in England with this strange design, ditching Spurs' traditional dark blue shorts. These were reinstated the following season. |
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Another kit that defies description. Its basically red and it has white diagonal pinstripes that changes width and vertical stripes over part of the front and they change as well and I think I'll lie down. Also worn by Gillingham in blue. |
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A typically busy kit from the period, there is a slightly scary robot feel to this outfit.
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West Brom have worn some design classics in their time so what possesed the mangement to adopt this barcode design with wavy stripes? Opticians near the Hawthorns must have done a roaring trade. |
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One of Admiral's early kits, this was unveiled in the European Cup Winners' Cup Final.
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The first of York's infamous "Y Front" kits. A white version with maroon Y followed two seasons later.
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The Ironsides played to relentless wolf whistles from their own supporters when they adopted this outfit. After two games the players refused to turn out in these ludicrous striped shorts and black ones were substituted. |
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The Hi-Bees adopted their classic green shirts with white sleeves in 1938 and have worn them to this day, aside from two seasons when they were disfigured with striped sleeves. Nominated by Fraser Pettigrew |
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The Pars traditional colours are black and stripes with red trim. This version, featuring faded blotches is probably best forgotten.
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Clyde's traditional colours are white and black with red trim. According to some sources they played in khaki shirts immediately after the Second World War. Presumably they thought that camouflage would prevent their opponents from spotting their players. |
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During the 1990s there was a brief vogue for tartan in Scotland. Morton went completely over the top with this outfit. |
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Saints sober tradition of plain blue shirts and white shorts succumbed to the 1990s fashion for irregular stripes - known as their "tie and dye" period. |
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Worn in happier times when East Stirling fans could look forward to something more than finishing last every season. |
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West Ham's 'american football' effort was in vogue at the time. It was ok in short sleeves (far from 'good' though!) but the long sleeve version looked like a pyjama top. Martin Parnham |
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I nominate Errea's horrific attempt at diversity that is Palace's 2007-08 kit. It really is an eyesore. The designer was obviously told, "Keep it stupid, simple!" Tam Woods |
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They took away the famous stripes and replaced them with black and grey (on closer inspection black dots). The final straw was the addition of red triangles. Known as the Highway Code strip. Stuart Holland |
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Designed by Umbro with what can only be described as soot marks down the sleeves. This is the most ill-fitting, horrible looking kit a normally stylish United have ever had. Chris Worrall |
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Over the years Aberdeen's kits have been red with various amounts of white but this kit had blue paint splashes all over the top and shorts. Fans campaigned to get the blue removed. Stuart Stephen |
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The blue and black stripes just aren't Wigan and to make it worse, this kit was made of a horrible plasticky material. Tom Darbyshire |
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Also recommended are the ten worst ever kits from all over the world to be found at ESPNsoccernet and a collection of Football League change kit horrors at AveIt.Net.