FOOTBALL SHIRTS FROM THE BEGINNING TO NOW.
Football Shirts the beginning
When we were kids all we wanted to do was wear the shirt of our favorite team with our heroes name printed on the back. Nothing much has changed now that we are adults, but I have always wondered how football shirts first started. In the early years of football players were forced to wear shirts that were similar to a cricket shirt which were just plain white.
- In1863 Preston North End was founded and played in a shirt with colour that had long blue stripes which was worn with white shorts, It wasn't until 1888 that they changed their shirts .
- In 1875 the year Black Burn Rovers were founded they sported a shirt which was made up of blue and white halves .
- In 1884 Bolton wanderers added colour to their shirts which had a design that was white with red spots and the following year they changed their shirt colours again to red ,blue with white stripes.
- In 1890 football shirt designs were standardised into a few alternatives , some of which were hoops, stripe and plain designs, but the material they were made from stayed the same which was a flannel shirt or in AstonVillas case they played in a woollen shirt.
The 1900s
It wasn't until the 1900 that the football shirt design changed in a way that we know today -
- In 1919 the year Leeds united was formed their shirt was black and white stripes.
- In 1920 -1934 Leeds united changed to blue and white stripes on their shirts.
- From 1934-1961 Leeds united changed their shirt colour to yellow and blue and changed over these years from yellow to blue being the main primary colour.
- In 1961 Leeds united started to play in the all white shirts with touches of blue and yellow which are still the main colours of their shirts today.
- In 1939 the first numbers on the back of shirts started to appear.
- The material in which the football shirts were made changed after the second world war due the advances in materials such as nylon, synthetic and acrylic.
- The shirt went through design changes from crew neck to v neck , for two colour shirts then to all plain shirts as the team experimented .
- All through the 1900 the designs of football shirts were very radical from metallic to v inset collars and multi-coloured shirts.
- It wasn't until 1980s that the shirt that we know now was evolving and the material used was a artificial polyester shirt
- In the 1990s the replica kit exploded onto the football scene.
- Also in the 90s teams came out with multiple kits in one season .
- At the close of the 90s hi-tech materials that came in which kept the wearer cooler.
- Also at the end of the 90s shirts became minimal.
The 2000s
- In the 2000s football shirts started to make the designs of their shirts simpler and introduced the skin type shirt which was to highlight the players physique but when the shirts were introduced to the fans they proved very unpopular.
- In 2006-07 the Football league allowed teams to add a second sponsor to their shirts but this did not extend to the Premier League.
As the years have rolled past suppliers have put a lot more time and money into giving teams more of an edge on the pitch and this still carries on today. With the premier league and the clubs contributing over £8 billion to the economy in the 2021/22 season where a big part came from shirt sales this only due to grow even larger as time carries on with more kits coming out each year for each club .
