Historical Football Kits

6 June

It was twenty years ago today that the Historical Kits website was launched! At the time it was just a personal hobby project that I was persuaded to post on line, hosted on a server run by a friend of my son. Interest grew rapidly and after it was featured in The Guardian, we had so many visitors that the server broke and we realised we would need to pay for a professional hosting service.

From the beginning I wanted to invite visitors to contribute to the development of the site and very quickly contributions began to flood in from enthusiasts, kit anoraks, official and unofficial historians and veterans who shared early memories of being taken to matches as a child. Over time it became my pleasure and privilege to curate thousands of contributions from the growing army of enthusiastic visitors which at its peak numbered over a million a year. It was my greatest pleasure to uncover previously unrecorded kits from the Victorian period and to debunk long-held myths that passed into prosperity because lazy writers were content to repeat what they found in earlier histories rather than check original sources. Their contributions are noted in the list of sources at the foot of each club page.

It has been wonderful to hear from individuals who have been inspired to launch their own projects by visiting HFK and often these have included graphics of a far higher quality than my own. Several recent emails came from young people who were not born when HFK launched but wanted to share how their abiding interest in the history of football kits began when they encountered HFK.

As the anniversary approached I cast around for something to mark the occasion and realised that the forthcoming 2026 World Cup would be an opportunity to undertake one final, big project. I'm pleased to announce that, following the publication of FIFA's official kit guide to the group stages that I have now populated the group stage on the 2026 World Cup section. This includes all the variations that FIFA's kit police have insisted on to satisfy their requirement for high contrast strips on matchdays.

The World Cup also provides a suitable opportunity for me to retire and that is what I intend to do when the tournament is over. There are, however still some contributions in my in-tray and to honour those contributors I shall post these before I hang up my keyboard.

My retirement does not mean the end of the HFK website. I am taking steps to ensure that the site will continue to be available in the future even if it will no longer be updated.

To everyone who has contributed, criticised or appreciated the website over the last two decades I should like to say a very warm and humble "Thank You Very Much."

28 May

Latest additions to the 2026 World Cup section include Uzbekistan (1st, 2nd added), Norway (2nd corrected, 3rd added), Canada (3rd added), Ecuador (3rd added), Jordan (1st, 2nd & 3rd kits updated), Tunisia (1st, 2nd & 3rd kits updated). I am grateful to Jude Clarke who drew these to my attention.

25 May

Curacao (1st), Bosnia & Herzegovina (1st, 2nd), Iraq (1st, 2nd, 3rd) kits added to the 2026 World Cup section. That leaves Uzbekistan as the only nation yet to announce their World Cup kits.

15 May

I've added Mexico's 3rd kit and Iran's 1st and 2nd kits to the 2026 World Cup section.

6 May

I've added Group L to the 2026 World Cup section. I'll add the missing kits when these are announced but in the meantime I'm going back to building our new shed.

5 May

Group J and K have been added to the 2026 World Cup section although Uzbekistan have not announced their kits yet. I'll try to complete the final group over the next couple of days before building the match-by-match sections so they are ready for the tournament to kick off.

As we would expect, the big three sportswear providers are sponsoring the lion's share of teams with 37 of the participants signed up to Adidas (14), Nike (12) and Puma (11). Other suppliers are well represented with 8 teams on their rosters while 3 federations are undeclared.

I rather like Adidas' Tiro 26 Competition design with its thicker trim but I am mystified by their decision to have different templates for teams' second kits, with narrow three-stripe trim, retro trefoil logos and different number fonts. It's almost as if we now have two Adidas companies with different creative visions.

Nike's new template has received attention for all the wrong reasons because of the shoulder seam that won't lie flat. Apparently Nike are advising buyers to wash their new shirt before wearing it but if I had shelled out £125 for the Authentic version of my team's shirt I'd expect it to be perfect out of the box. The flowing seams and panels are somewhat understated allowing the viewer to focus on the creative design work that has gone into some of these jerseys.

Puma's new template is very disappointing not least because the patches on the sides of the jersey look different or even disappear depending on the position and pose of the player. While Adidas' templates and those of Nike look like they are integral to the overall concept, these Puma patches seem like an afterthought that doesn't contribute to the overall design.

I want to mention the kits that Colombian supplier Saeta have provided to Haiti. These are in an identical template with a remarkable detail in the lower right hand side of the jersey where the heroes of the Haitian revolution raise the flag of freedom in 1804.

Which brings us neatly to how designers have sought to integrate national cultural ideas into their work and here there is much to enjoy. Puma have, for example, incorporated into Egypt's red shirt an image of the Great Pyramid exuding waves of pharaonic energy.

It is, however, the second choice jerseys that have afforded designers the chance to let their imaginations rip. Freed from the constraints of working with restricted colour palettes and patterns, they have been given free reign to exercise their creativity. Adidas have, for example, drawn on Belgium's surrealist art movement (think Magritte) for their change shirt. Playfully, written into the back of the collar is Ceci n'est pas un maillot (this is not a jersey).

Nike have come up with a dark navy strip with a radiating electric blue graphic for Uruguay that some thought was inspired by a character from the Marvel Universe. In fact the pattern was inspired by the sweeping stands of the Estadio Centenario where Uruguay won the inaugural World Cup in 1930.

Portugal's strips celebrate the country's long-standing maritime tradition and this is represented on their change shirt by crashing waves.

Photo Credits: Soccer Bible, Footy Headlines, Football Shirt Culture, Puma.com.

I recently received an email from Jake, who is 16 and has been following HFK for years. He has launched his own World Cup 2026 website on which you can vote to rank the best kits, read kit-of-the-day posts and team kit pages, download a free wall chart and much more. If you want to invest more time looking at World Cup kit trivia take a look.

23 April

Group I teams have been added to the 2026 World Cup section apart from Iraq, who have yet to announce their outfits.

21 April

Group H teams have now been added to the 2026 World Cup section.

17 April

Group G teams have been added to the 2026 World Cup section with the exception of Iran who have yet to confirm if they will participate much less release news about this kits. I have noticed that some "Iran World Cup 2026" jerseys are being sold in online markets but I urge caution before buying as I am pretty sure they are fakes.

14 April

Group F teams have been added to the 2026 World Cup section.

I have been very amused by stories that have emerged since the last international break about the design flaw in Nike's latest hi-tech jerseys that can cause the shoulder seam to bunch up in a very odd manner. Nike have admitted there is a problem and say they are urgently looking into finding a solution. It's pleasing to know that the global giants of sports leisurewear can cock things up just like the rest of us.

Spoiler Alert!! If you've been following the BBC's excellent 2026 mockumentary you may be under the impression that the Oversight Team's Director of Integrity, Ian Fletcher has resigned to join the 2028 Olympics team. I think it's more likely that he has been tapped by Nike to help them spin their way out of this hole.

Photo Credit: THe Guardian, Nigel French/Getty Images/Allstar)

11 April

The Group E teams have been added to the 2026 World Cup section.

10 April

Several visitors have asked me if I plan to cover the 2026 World Cup this year. I've been reluctant to commit myself to this given the size of the project and how the complexity of modern kits makes drawing them very time consuming. On the other hand I do enjoy a challenge and since June will be a special landmark for the website it seems appropriate to mark this with a major project.

So I am pleased to announce that I shall indeed be covering the 2026 World Cup. This is being launched as a work in progress and I hope to complete the index page by the end of the month. After that I shall create the sections for match-by-match coverage. The first four groups have been completed and I'll provide regular updates here and you are of course very welcome to visit the new section as I build it.

Since I am no longer active on social media I would be most grateful if visitors would share the word through their own networks to spread the good news.

And I promise not to mention Donald Trump (damn!).

4 March

I am very grateful to Michael West of the Yeovil Town Heritage Society for sharing the fruits of his research into the history of Yeovil Town's kits. As a result I have updated the Glovers' section with nine previously unrecorded kits, several corrections and revised dates between 1895 and 1975. The photograph shows the Yeovil team from 1908-09 with the Dorset League champions trophy.

Photo credit: Bygone Yeovil Facebook

Barnet (1972-75 added), Maidstone United (1981-82 added), Bury (1981-82 missing tape added to shirt).

This photograph is of the Barnet team of 1972-73, complete with excessive face furniture and kipper ties. Those were the days.

2 March

My sincere apologies for the total lack of activity on the site for the past several months. This was due to a bout of poor health in December followed by a truly memorable holiday in West Africa in January. As a result I'm afraid I rather lost my motivation but as Spring approaches I shall once more pick up the reins (does a website have reins?) and resume updating.

I'll start by working through some of the items that have been sitting in my in tray.

Newcastle United's official historian, Paul Joannou, wrote in his programme notes a while ago that when the team joined the Second Division in the 1893-94 season no fewer than seven of the 15 teams in that division wore red. When the team travelled to Woolwich Arsenal for their opening match, the visitors wore blue and white striped shirts as shown here. These served as an alternative for the rest of the season but the requirement to change frequently prompted the committee to adopt black and white stripes for the following season with dark blue knickers. And the rest is history.

Photo credit: chroniclelive.co.uk

Robin Horton has found these snippets in contemporary press reports: Burnley (red socks worn in 1890-91), Middlesbrough (wore white shirts and navy knickers until 1901 when their red change jerseys became first choice).

I'm grateful to John Bremner who found this photograph of Rangers lining up at Nou Camp to play Barcelona during their May 1956 tour of Spain. This gives us an excellent view of the large "R" worn on the players' shirts. Contrary to expectation this is not rendered in a conventional font but a rather unusual rope like design. It has been suggested that these tops were borrowed from a local team and this feature lends some credence to this idea. While researcing this image I also came across a photograph taken in November 1956 when Rangers met OGC Nice in a European Cup First Round play-off. Once again a crest is in evidence and while it is difficult to make it out from the grainy image it does appear to be a version of the familiar RFC monogram but with considerably fatter lettering.

Photo credit: The Rangers Archive