Historical Football Kits

6 February: Dredging the electric interweb for details of old club crests is turning up some choice pearls. For example, several previously unrecorded strips have been added to our Colchester United section thanks to the expanded historical section on the Colchester United website. Frustratingly, the images posted there are without captions so I have had to estimate dates and I am still searching for details of the crests worn by the team between 1972 and 1994. On the other hand, the official site now includes a history of Colchester Town, the club that folded when United were formed in 1937. This photograph, borrowed from the official club website shows Colchester Town in 1913 wearing extraordinary shirts of myrtle green, dark claret and white. I've added a graphic to our Strange Hues section.

3 February: In the course of researching his new history of Blackpool FC, On This Day (Pitch Publishing Ltd: Nov 2009 ISBN 1905411502) HFK Research Associate Peter Gillatt has uncovered a wealth of historic photographs and detail, which he has kindly shared with us. He has also posted some of these images on the Blackpool On This Day Website, from which this intriguing team group is taken, captioned "Blackpool FC 1881." The modern day Blackpool was not formed until 1887 so this must be a picture of one of the earlier teams that played in the town and folded before the modern club was formed.

Falkirk's third strip, used at Ibrox recently, has been added.

While researching club crests, I have learned that the badge worn by Burnley FC between 1887 and 1895 was the royal coat of arms rather than the Prince of Wales' three feathers crest as I had previously thought. The right to wear this crest was given to the club following a visit to Turf Moor by Prince Edward and it was worn in the 1914 FA Cup final. As far as I know, Burnley are the only football club to have been permitted to wear a royal crest.

29 January: Thanks to Simon Monks we have been able to establish that Yeovil Town, switched from their usual plain green shirts to ones with white sleeves especially for their FA Cup fourth round tie with Sunderland in 1949. The Cidermen's victory over the First Division side remains one of the greatest giant-killing feats in the history of the cup (Yeovil were then still a non-league side). Yeovil retained these shirts for the next decade but we can now reveal that the Yeovil Casuals team (from whom the modern team is descended) wore very similar shirts in 1904-05 (see photograph left).

Other updates: Details missing from Hibernian's current kits have been added, Birmingham City's third kit added, Grimsby Town (1987-89 added). Peter Gillatt, HFK's Research Associate for Blackpool FC has provided details of the crest used between 1987 and 1993 and a missing kit from 1963-64.

28 January: Following on from a suggestion made by Colin Barratt recently, we have started to add images of past and present crests to the narrative section of each club page. To date the Accrington Stanley to Birmingham City sections have been updated and more will be added today.

Further to the item published on 24 January below, Richard Sanders has confirmed that it was the Scottish FA who insisted that JH Forrest wear a differently coloured shirt to the rest of the England team in 1886. The Scottish Football Association was still dominated by the gentlemen-amateurs of Queens' Park FC who objected to playing against a professional. Indeed their hostility to professionalism meant that payments to players remained forbidden in Scotland until 1893. There is no record of just what Forrest wore in this match but I think it quite likely he used his Blackburn Rovers' club shirt.

24 January: Intriguing evidence has come to hand about the shirts worn by England in the late-Victorian period. In his splendid history of the birth of British football, Beastly Fury, Richard Sanders records that the first acknowledged professional to be chosen for England, JH Forrest, was forced to wear a differently coloured shirt to his amateur gentlemen-players in 1886. Glen Isherwood has also uncovered evidence that the England team may have switched to dark shirts for an unofficial international against a German XI in 1901. Further details are in our England 1872-1939 section.

The photograph is of the England team of 1876, probably the oldest existing image of the team, courtesy of bygonderbyshire.co.uk.

Jyll Skinner recently wrote in asking about the terms "football strip" and "football kit," wondering why "uniform" is not used and whether "strip" might derive from "stripe". The term "Football Kit" refers to the players' entire equipment - shirt, shorts, socks, boots, shin pads and (ahem) jock-strap. ("Historical Football Kits" is something of a misnomer but we wanted to avoid "strip" in the title as we thought this might turn up in search engines in a rather inappropriate way.) "Uniform" is American English and is rarely used in the UK where the term "strip" is preferred. I believe this stems from the use of the verb "to strip" to describe players "stripping" before a game. I do not believe there is any connection with the term "stripe."

Bryan Culshaw has threatened to eat his entire programme collection if we don't change Everton's change shorts from blue to yellow between 1979 and 1982. So we have.

Luton Town's 1974-79 Admiral strip has been added to our Classic Kits section.

17 January: Graham Warner has pointed out that Wolves wore a special outfit with fluorescent shirts in their pioneering frendlies against European opposition in the 1950s. The photograph is taken from footage of the team wearing these spectacular strips in action against Spartak Moscow on the British Pathe website.

We have confirmed that Yeovil Town adopted their famous green shirts with white sleeves in 1949. Huddersfield Town's new charity strip has been added.

Other updates: Blackpool (1956-57 added), Swindon Town (1913-14 added), QPR (collars on 1905-15 jerseys now correct), Fulham (1913-14 cadet stripes added to socks), Reading (1897-98 kit now confirmed as adopted in 1894), WBA (1913-14 added), Brentford (1905-06 added), Aston Villa (1905-06 added). The Blackburn Rovers kit listed as "circa1915" has been confirmed for 1913-14.

16 January: Continuing our series on former Football League clubs, this photograph is of Barrow taken in 1934-35 and taken from the informative barrowfc.com website. The point of interest is the V neck shirts worn by the team: this style became almost universal between 1955 and 1962 but was very rare indeed before that. In fact, the only other team we have found wearing V necks in the Thirties is Southport. Barrow were founder members of Third Division (North) in 1921 and lost their place in 1972. They currently play in the Blue Square Premier, just one tier away from recovering their place in the Football league.

14 January: Featured in today's picture is the Ashington team from 1914 when they won the Northern Football Alliance. The Colliers became founder members of Division Three (North) of the Football League in 1921 but failed re-election eight years later, victims of the miners' strike that caused a collapse in attendances. The club still plays in the Northern League and although the town's last deep pit closed in 1988, it retains strong links to the mining industry. Indeed, the current board is led by Ian Lavery, President of the National Union of Mineworkers.

Having looked again at my notes for Dumbarton, I've tweaked the first few entries. Tony Sealey has provided information that allows us to confirm the dates of Spurs' kits between 1919 and 1926 and add a missing 1970-71 change kit. Thanks to Barry McKenna, the background to Kilmarnock's third strip is now revealed in the current SPL section. Portsmouth (1959-61 added), Cheltenham United (makers' logos added to 1997-98, 1999-2000 graphics).

9 January: I know that many visitors enjoy the old photographs that we post here from time to time and we have built up quite a nice collection. Here, for example, is the Glossop team from 1906. They joined the Football League in 1898, were promoted to the First Division at the first attempt, only to drop back into the second after one season. In 1915 they were not re-elected and were disbanded shortly afterwards. The club was reformed after the Great War and now plays under it's original name of Glossop North End.

If you have any vintage team photographs from the Victorian or Edwardian era that you would like to share with us, please get in touch.

Chelsea (1992-93 added), Leeds United (1994-95 away kit now in the correct shade of blue).

7 January: Welcome to our first posting of 2010 and a very happy New Year to everyone. In view of the icy conditions currently affecting the UK, I thought this image of a match between Manchester United and Arsenal from January 1926 might be a good way to kick off, as it were (do you see what I did there?).

Updates: Chesterfield (1945-46 collar amended, 1964-65, 1975-76 added), Everton (1971-72 change kit added), Celtic (1983-84 away kit corrected), Dumbarton (1988-89 restored), Cambridge United (new sponsor's logo added to 2009-10 graphic), the jerseys worn by Old Etonians have been changed to a more accurate shade of Eton Blue in the FA Cup Finalists and Eminent Victorians sections. Southampton (collar on the 1976 FA Cup Final kit amended).

30 December: Thanks to Bernard Gallagher and John Lerwill, I have reviewed the evidence to hand and arrived at what I think is the most likely sequence of Aston Villa kits between 1885 and 1887, including the curious "piebald" shirt. Given the difficulty of corroborating scarce source material, the entries remain somewhat provisional.

Liverpool (change kits from 1909-11, 1912, 1929-35 added).

2009-10 updates: Ipswich Town (3rd), Peterborough United (charity strip), Hartlepool United (3rd).

23 December: The recent derby game between Charlton Athletic and Millwall was dedicated to the memories of the late Rob Knox and Jimmy Mizen, both fans of the Addicks and the Lions, who were murdered in separate street attacks last May. Their families were on the pitch before kick-off to promote the Street Violence Ruins Lives campaign. Both teams wore the campaign logos on their shirts, which carried the names of the victims on the back. The match worn shirts were then auctioned off with proceeds going to the Rob Knox Memorial Fund and the Jimmy Mizen Foundation. These strips are now recorded in the current League One season gallery.

Everton (1954 change kit added), Liverpool (1906-07 change added), Sunderland (1996-97 badge detailing amended).

22 December: We have more from Bernard Gallagher who has written to share some of his own research, published earlier in Claret & Blue magazine, which gives further details of Aston Villa's early kits as well as clarifying the club's origins. The reference to blue and red stripes (1876-77) first came from the Birmingham County Football Association handbook of the time. Until I suggested otherwise, everyone presumed that the reference to stripes meant vertical stripes. I suggested and illustrated otherwise in the Claret & Blue magazine some years ago after discovering a reference to Jack Hughes (who claims to have scored Villa’s first ever goal) took part in an athletic meeting in September 1876 wearing a blue and red hooped jersey.

It seems that the black tops surfaced for season 1878-79, with the lion motif. The top was not a jersey but a loose fitting, blouse style shirt with collar. There is photo evidence of this. For season 1879-80 the switch was made to black woollen jerseys. The green strip was also my discovery and is listed in the Aston Villa minute book of the time. Again someone has presumed that “two shades of green” must mean hoops. Wrong. The shirts, not jerseys, were quartered. I have photo evidence of this.

Bernard goes on to provide some intriguing information on the shirts worn in 1885-86: Piebald is not stripes but random blotches. This style was popular with some teams, but not with Villa because the team was not successful when wearing the jersey. The piebald was red on white background. This appears to be at odds with the details provided by the club's historian, John Lerwill so we will seek further confirmation.

The photograph shows the Villa team in June 1882 wearing navy and white, one of many various coloured outfits worn before claret and light blue was adopted in 1887.

18 December: We have more on Rangers shirts from the Victorian period today from Gary Ralston, author of Rangers 1872, The Gallant Pioneers. Gary writes: Firstly, the idea of the Oxford and Cambridge link being my theory is erroneous. As stated in the book, it was suggested by former Rangers player Archibald Steel in his autobiography from the early 1890s, '25 Years Football' (under the nom de plume of 'Old International'). He makes (for me a compelling) argument that Rangers became the 'Light Blues' because Vale of Leven worse such dark blue in two of the three games from the 1877 Scottish Cup final they resembled the colours of Oxford. Now I know I'm getting really precious(!) but I find it quite insulting (I know, I know, I shouldn't really) that I would somehow write about the formation of Rangers in such an in-depth manner and not know the basis from which the club (and indeed other Scottish clubs) were formed. I know our game developed out of the working classes (although Queen's Park, in fairness, were a solidly middle class and 'posh' outfit) and not the universities.

In addition, your assertion of the term 'royal blue' in relation to the crown might be worth a discussion (the Marquis of Lorne, son-in-law to Queen Victoria was the club's first honorary patron). However, quite how you manage to assert a relationship between Rangers of the 1870s and 1880s with unionism is, quite frankly, off the scale for anyone who knows the early history of the club. It seems strange that a website with such a hard earned reputation for its fastidious research would in turn, go public with a theory it admits itself it has no evidence to support.

Anyway, rant over - and I hope you have a great festive season.

13 December: We recently heard from Paul Szyman, who has followed Wolves since the early seventies, a period (Paul writes) when shirt designs were simple, templates few and suppliers even fewer. A relatively minor design change at the start of a new season smacked you between the eyes & embedded itself in your memory. Thanks to Paul we have clarified several dates, identified a warm weather strip (1973-74) and added the strip worn after the team won the League Cup in March 1974 (Photo courtesy of wolvesheroes.com). Paul adds, Around 1977 I played for a youth club side in the Heath Town area of Wolverhampton. This side had somehow managed to acquire a full set of long sleeved Wolves shirts from the club (the 1972-late 74 version.) The shirts were very faded by this time but I am convinced they were genuine. The single wolf badge was embroidered onto the shirts. Replica shirts of that era didn't go as far as featuring club badges & when they did appear a little later they were of the printed variety which cracked & peeled off after a few washes. I had the pleasure of wearing John McAlle's no 6 shirt. I always remember how heavy it felt compared to the schoolboy kit I was used to wearing. I also remember reading the label which told me the shirt was made of polyamide which I believe to be a form of nylon.

Several kits have been added to the Iconic Away Kits section: Portsmouth (1984-85), Luton Town (1982-83), Spurs (1977-80), Celtic (1982-83), Rangers (1982-84), Derby County (1987-89). The variant kit worn when Leeds United played Dinamo Zagreb in August 1967 has been added due to its historical interest.

12 December: Our featured photograph of the Scottish Cup winning Dumbarton team from 1883 (4 December) prompted Jim Jenkinson to undertake some research into the badges worn by several players. They are not, as we supposed the crests of the Irish and Dunbartonshire FAs (the latter was not formed until the following year) but Jim's research does shed light on the practice of players sewing crests from representative games onto their club shirts. Jim writes:

Jock Hutchison (standing extreme left) was one of several players who played for the 'Scottish Counties' team. This representative team, judging by the clubs supplying players, was representing the whole central belt in Scotland save Glasgow. In January 1883, they played three matches, v Glasgow, v Lancashire and v Birmingham. Hutchison and the man next to him, James McAulay (goalkeeper), the man sitting third from right, James Miller (forward), all played in the matches against Glasgow and Birmingham. The two men sitting on the far left were both called Robert Brown. Newspapers of the day called them (1) and (2) or senior and junior. The club differentiated the two by calling them "Sparrow" and "Plumber", (one being small, the other by his vocation in the shipyards in Dumbarton.) "Plumber" is wearing a badge and played for the Scottish Counties against Lancashire. Joe Lindsay (reclining below the cup) has two badges - but did not play for Scottish Counties that season, but he was selected the season before against Glasgow and Lancashire. This fact combined with no badges on James Miller's shirt, would seem to suggest the badges were from the previous season, (Messrs Hutchison, McAulay, Miller badges fits in with this, but I think it was "Sparrow" and not "Plumber" who played for Scottish Counties in 1881-82.) All I can suggest is that the badges are the Glasgow, Birmingham and Lancashire FAs, awarded in 1882 and 1883.

10 December: The white strip worn by Bury recently has now been confirmed by Ralph Pomeroy to have been a special edition charity strip rather than a new third kit as we stated on 7 December.

7 December: Our thanks go to Rob Bruce who sent in this fascinating photograph of Rangers taken in February 1887 on the occasion of a match between the current Rangers and a team of former players. The "Moderns" beat the "Ancients" 3-2 in the last game to be played at Kinning Park before the club moved into the first Ibrox stadium. There are several intriguing details.

First of all we appear to have the entire playing staff, the former players and the entire committee in the picture. Only ten players (presumably the "Ancients") are wearing white shirts. I wonder if the gent sitting on the far right of the second row might be the Ancients' goalkeeper? If so, it suggests that the practice of having goalkeepers wear contrasting tops to their team mates was adopted more than twenty years before the Football League in England made this compulsory.

Rob speculates that the white shirts may have been Rangers' change shirts of the period. While they probably would have worn white when forced to change, I think the shirts worn by the Ancients are in fact the players' own, every day wear (several are sporting neckties). Contrast these with the plain blue shirts worn by the majority of the players with crew necks and three-button fly. This was a very common design in Scotland, widely produced by local gents' outfitters for football teams. As a professional team, I suspect that Rangers would have complete sets of both blue and white tops for their teams while the Ancients (now playing as amateurs) provided their own kit for this game.

Updates: Darlington (1982-84 sponsorship confirmed), Bury (new third strip added).

4 December: Today's featured team is Dumbarton FC, shown here wearing their navy jerseys of the period with the Scottish FA Cup in 1883 in a photograph submitted by Chris Whitefield. Of particular interest are the various badges sewn onto the players' tops. These would have been removed from shirts worn in representative games (the player standing on the extreme left appears to have both the Ireland and Dunbartonshire FA crests on his jersey). The club adopted their now traditional gold and black in 1888, a year before they merged with Dumbarton Athletic, but the old navy tops reappeared between 1897 and 1904.

From time to time teams are forced to borrow a strip from their oppnents when, for whatever reason, they turn up without a suitable kit. The latest example occured on 2 December when Leyton Orient lent Gillingham their black away strip after the Gills' kit hamper was held up in traffic on the way to the game. Full details are available on Orient's Website. Thanks to Chris Matterface for this snippet.

Huddersfield Town's away kit from the early 1990s has been added to the Iconic Away Kits section. Arsenal (1967-69 socks amended).

1 December: Aston Villa (1993-95 away kit socks corrected), Manchester United (1945-46 added, 1930-31, 1937-38 away kits added and a number of dates revised (thanks to Paul and Tim at unitedkits.com. Swindon Town (new third kit added).