The Football Shirt Collective

As Arsenal recently announced they are changing their kit makers from Nike to Adidas, Rob Hogg takes a look back at the classic Arsenal, 1992/3 shirt.  This kit is part of Beyond Retro’s Beyond the terraces collection.   

Thanks to a historic cup double, 92-93 was a jubilant season for Arsenal, even if there wasn’t much to talk about on the league front. After an opening day 2-0 lead over Norwich had been turned into a 4-2 defeat, ‘Gorgeous’ George Graham instilled some defensive discipline. The tactics subsequently relied on the famous Arsenal backline and, if possible, a goal from Ian Wright. The result was not many goals in, not many goals out, and not so many points either.

If anyone other than Wright poked their head above the parapet, there was hell to pay – as shown by what happened to Steve Morrow after getting ludicrously far forward in the Coca-Cola Cup Final against Sheffield Wednesday and hitting the winner. As a warning to other players thinking of doing the same, Tony Adams immediately broke Morrow’s arm.    

Steve Morrow and Tony Adams

Following on from victory in the League Cup, further glory awaited in the FA Cup. This time it was Andy Linighan who put his body on the line by heading a dramatic 119th minute winner. Here’s the goal, with Linighan soaring like an eagle above the owls. In this case, it’s Paul Davis who does his best to strangle the potential goalscorer at birth – and is quickly joined by fellow teammates also thirsty for blood.

A double then, for the team from Highbury. Interestingly in their cup runs they scored a total of 33 goals, which was only 7 shy of the 40 they scored all season in the league. And there would be more cups the next season, this time finding glory in Europe against Parma, whilst wearing the same shirt.

On the team sheet front, the team (and George Graham’s bank balance) had been added to by a brace of Norwegian signings, Pal Lydersen and John Jensen.  Jensen, with 1 goal in 97 games, was almost the perfect Graham early 90s-era signing. 92-93 was also the last season for the long-serving David O’Leary who remains reasonably popular in North London, if not elsewhere.

Arsenal, Adidas, 1992/3

And as for the shirt, this is a classic red and white design from back in the day when JVC still made video recorders, cup finals would be replayed on a weekday night, and it was no bad thing to sign an ineffective Norwegian fullback.

This shirt is one of Beyond Retro’s  collection of over 250 rare and exclusive football shirts dating back to the ‘70s.  Have a look at some of the shirts here.

You can see Beyond Retro’s collection in the flesh at the launch party on Tuesday 4th December at their Dalston store - where the shirts will be on show in all their glory.  

Did you have the Arsenal 1992/3 shirt?  Let us know on twitter @thefootballsc

You can buy the Arsenal, Adidas, 1992/3 shirt here.

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Arsenal, Adidas, 1991 - Right to left to Limpar

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Beyond Retros’ - Beyond the terraces collection

This morning I did what I swear will be my last ever car boot sale.   As I  was shifting my old vacum cleaner to a Nigerian family, out of the corner of my eye I spotted 3 Adidas stripes a mist a mountain of clothes on the stall next to me.    

I had  no option but to purchase what was my first ever football shirt - the Arsenal, Adidas, 1991 kit.  

I loved this shirt.  The off red colour.  AFC embroidered in the collar.  Pretending to be Ander Limpar.

Arsenal Football Shirt, Adidas, 1991

In 1990/1 Arsenal won the league scoring 74 and only conceding 18 goals, losing just one game away at Chelsea.  

At the back George Graham’s well drilled defence were immense.  Seaman, Winterburn, Dixon, Adams and Bould were as good as it gets for a back 5.   Up front Alan Smith finished the season as top goal scorer with 23 goals - whilst Paul Merson (13) and Ander Limpar (12) got double figures from midfield.   

The Swedish winger signed from Cremonese and ended up winning Swedish player of the year.  I loved the guy.  I would pretend to be him playing Arsenal vs. Tottenham in the playground at school.  

I was 8 years old in the 1990/1 season and most of my memories are from the title winning video.  There are so many Martin Tyler sound bites, “Right to left to Limpar” , ”And he did that like the England full back he is”. 

The Arsenal team in 1991 had fight.  Forget Pizzagate, the 21 man brawl when Arsenal visited Manchester United was the real battle of Old Trafford.  After Winterburn went in a “committed” challenge on Brian McLair.  The Scottish midfielder along with Dennis Irwin went on to boot Winterburn in the back whilst on the floor.  There was history between the players and what ensued was a ruck involving pretty much every player on the pitch.  You can watch Winterburn gleefully talking about being booted by McLair here.  

So to the woman who was selling this Arsenal shirt amongst a mountain of clothes.  Thanks for the memories.

Mike Maxwell 

Is the Arsenal, Adidas, 1990 shirt the best Arsenal shirt ever?  Let us know on twitter @thefootballsc.   

You can buy the Arsenal, Adidas, 1991 kit here

This rather dashing shirt comes from a time when Liverpool were at the height of all things fashionable: the Spice Boys, Mark Kennedy, 5-3-2.

Liverpool football shirt, Adidas, 1994/5

The man leading this voguish revolution was Roy Evans, brought in to replace Graeme Souness who subsequently went off to be mad in Turkey.

There wasn’t much for Evans to replace. Souness had led the club through a three year Villas-Boas style nightmare overhauling the squad. His transfer strategy of buying inept players had only been ended in the December of 1993. 94/95 was Roy Evans’ first full season in charge.

Things started promisingly with a 6-1 hammering of Crystal Palace, and then what is still the quickest ever hat-trick by Robbie Fowler, in a 3-0 win over Arsenal. Look at him there, swaying about with those lovely lines running up his sides.

Everything sort of flattened out after that for the rest of the year, with a series of Souness style ‘mixed results’.  But there were two huge highs at the end.  First of all in the League Cup there was the ‘McManaman final’, where the man that Real Madrid fans apparently thought looked like Nicole Kidman scored a brace to beat Bolton Wanderers. And following on was the last game of the season against title hopefuls Blackburn.

A Liverpool win could well mean the title going to those nice down to earth lads at Old Trafford. The recently reconfigured Kop was stunned when the Reds ran out 2-1 winners, but the scene turned to one of jubilation as that nice down to earth man Andy Cole had a meltdown at Upton Park.

You can hear the newly seated Liverpool fans having a bit of a sing-a-long at the end of this clip.

Evans built an attractive team in a pleasant shirt that didn’t win anything after the League Cup. A shame really, seeing as the man who followed him, Gerard Houllier, had much more success but with ugly shirts and uglier football. Evans was the true King of the Catwalk.

Is the 1994 Spice Boys number, Liverpool’s best ever football shirt?  Let us know on twitter @thefootballsc.

You could write a book on Manchester United’s away kits. Some 80s blue / white indecision sort of resolved itself in this monstrosity.  Almost all the shirts seem iconic, either for United dominating English football, or showing brief moments of vulnerability, such as in their grey ‘invisible kit’.

But we should probably do something with the home kit, so let’s have a look at the cup winning shirt from 1982/83. The first thing to note is the sponsor, which is much more specific than later incarnations. 

Manchester United, Adidas, 1982 

Looking at the squad list, the first name to jump out is reserve goalkeeper Jeff Wealands who went on to become a legend at non-league Altrincham. Bafflingly, Wealands was kept out of the side by South African Gary Bailey who my dad once helped change a tyre.  Apparently Bailey was ‘not very friendly’.

It was also the year when Norman Whiteside broke into the team. At the age of 17, Whiteside scored in against Liverpool in the League Cup, earning himself the nickname of the ‘Scourge of the Scousers’, and then he got one in the FA Cup as well. His career would go on to be wrecked by a knee injury. This was a theme for a squad with knee problems running through it, taking in names such as Paul McGrath and Steve Coppell. Coppell’s career didn’t last beyond 1983, his knee destroyed by a reckless challenge in a world cup qualifier against Hungary.

Rob Hogg

2001/2 saw Fulham return to the top tier for the first time since the late sixties. Fulham had lost hope of a quick return after the  professional retirement of the talismanic Johnny Haynes, in 1970. ‘The Maestro’ had been at the club for almost twenty years and built a formidable reputation, based on showing his exasperation with less talented teammates, either by giving out a rollicking or standing sullenly with his hands on his hips.

But it might all have been different if he had agreed to sign for Milan in 1961. If you’d like to know the full goings on for the transfer deal then why not watch this pathe’ clip which really does its best to break down the details of the contract negotiations. Milan might well have been inspired to sign Haynes after his performance in helping Young England to whip Italy in 1955 - a game all the more remarkable seeing as the Italians had chosen to substitute their left half “apparently for no good reason”.

All of this introduction and talk of Johnny Haynes has been aimed at avoiding discussing the kits. The Fulham home shirt of recent times has not been particularly exciting, save perhaps for some off the shoulder work by Puma in 2004-05.

But the 2001-02 Adidas outfit does have one bit of interest with that enormous great Pizza Hut logo sitting in the middle of the shirt. The prime position gives a good chance for even the idle watcher to spot the large and jaunty red hat which Pizza Hut wears on top of its head. 

2001-02 was also notable for being that season when Al Fayed’s money and Tigana’s management had taken Fulham into the Premiership.  After a big outlay in the Summer, Fulham finished an ultimately disappointing 13th in their first season. Big signing Steve Marlet failed to do the business (11 in 54), but other acquisitions from that summer and previous transfer windows included Edwin van der Sar and Louis Saha. And of course, there was cult hero Barry Hayles. Here’s a video tribute to the player ‘with the best physique you could possibly wish to see on a young man’

Ever since then, maybe the most interesting incident that has taken place at Craven Cottage has been the occasional change from 4-4-2 to 4-5-1.

Rob Hogg @RobHoggAMLC

Is the 2001/2 Fulham’s finest football shirt?  Let us know through twitter @thefootballsc or on facebook. 

Was the 1978 - 1986 the greatest era for the Nottingham Forest football kit? @Red__Sprite takes a look back at the day of Adidas and trophies.

Between 1978 and 1986, Nottingham Forest won the League Championship, European Cup (twice), League Cup (twice), European Super Cup and Charity Shield.  And they did it in style - this period saw them sporting the simple, classic Adidas three stripes kit. 

At the time I was merely a baby, but I’m told I watched / slept through many of the European games on my Dad’s chest.  Looking back, Adidas provided some fantastic stuff.

Nottingham Forest, Adidas, 1978-1986

- The home red shirt - normally worn with white shorts and red socks, but red shorts were worn for both the European Cup final victories

- The yellow away kit - worn with either yellow or blue shorts, this was worn for the 1978 League Cup Final replay victory over Liverpool at Old Trafford 

- Some fine tracksuits - such as this red worn by Brian Clough 

As the early 1980s worn on, pinstripes were added to the classic design.  The silverware also dried up.  No connection has ever been proved, but that is not to say there wasn’t one.

For the 1986-1987 season, Forest switched to Umbro.  Enough said.