The Island of Misfit Toys: Eight football shirts that have been overlooked, unappreciated, or unfairly maligned

By: Dan | December 11th, 2009

Shirts are always a popular topic in the football world. Why shouldn’t they be? Not only are they an integral part of a club’s public image, but as items that fans are expected to shell out ever increasing amounts of money for, they are a natural hotbed for debate. Also, they’re a form of art, and who doesn’t love a good art fight, where cold hard facts melt away under a tide of subjective, individual opinion.

With that in mind, here is my subjective, individual opinion on eight shirts that people simply don’t like enough.

8. Tottenham Hotspur 1986-87

The mid-80s Hummel design that usually gets all the attention is the vertically halved solid/pinstriped shirt that was worn by Denmark in the 1986 World Cup. When a nontraditional design is worn by a beloved side like Danish Dynamite, that is wont to happen. Personally, I’ve always preferred the shirt that Hummel turned out for Tottenham. It seems like the Denmark shirt was the first draft and the Tottenham version was the finished product. So, Spurs, not as good as 1986 Denmark, but they did have a better shirt.

7. Athletic Bilbao 2004-05

The end result definitely left a lot to be desired; the ketchup and psychedelic camouflage remarks that abounded about this shirt were fully deserved, but I always thought Bilbao deserved more credit from an ideas perspective. How many clubs would commission a painter (in this case, Basque artist Dario Urzay,) to design a shirt for them? At least Bilbao could claim the whole thing was a case of ‘art for art’s sake’ gone wrong, as opposed to, say, Atletico Madrid, who defiled their shirt with promotional Spider Man webs because the price was right.

6. Manchester United 1995-96

By now, everyone knows the story of the infamous grey kit. Manchester United trail Southampton 3-0 at halftime, Manchester United claim Umbro’s work possesses cloaking technology made famous by 1987 action blockbuster Predator, they change and lose the game anyway. Lost in the ridiculousness of the story is the fact that this was actually not bad looking by the standards of grey shirts, as the flat, monochrome look that so often makes grey kits unpopular was avoided. Any chance of this shirt being resurrected as a cult item?

5. Racing Club Paris 1988-89

This club’s glory day’s were closer to the first half of the twentieth century, so they aren’t exactly a household name. Their relative obscurity has kept their wonderful shirt from widespread recognition though. A lot of hooped shirts (Celtic, Fortuna Dusseldorf, QPR, Hamilton) are pretty bright and bold, so Racing Club’s mix of white and sky blue make for an interesting departure. This particular version, in all its shiny, 1980s glory is definitely a keeper.

4. Germany 1994

In the early to mid 90s, adidas, in a modernization campaign, abandoned the classic design elements that served the company so well for so long. This left their designers having to think of new things to put on shirts, which they did with mixed success. I don’t think the ‘Equipment’ shirt designs from this era, which featured the blocky stripes of the new adidas logo are too fondly remembered. For the 1994 World Cup, adidas dispensed with stripes all together on the German shirt in favor of some kind of abstract German flag. I think that’s what it was supposed to be anyway; to be honest, I’ve never been sure. It was certainly a striking design, but, sadly, it proved to be the peak of their modern efforts. They would try again with the oversized stripe designs for the next couple of years before (thankfully, in my opinion) returning to a more classic aesthetic by the 1998 World Cup.

3. Olympique Marseille 2008-09

The argyle masterpiece easily falls into the ‘unappreciated’ category. Marseille, in an effort to boost shirt sales, wanted something that the chic and fashionable among their followers wouldn’t be ashamed to be seen in outside of the Velodrome. Like ‘mom and pop’ when they made off with Jerry Seinfeld’s sneakers, they scored big time. To be honest, I don’t think many people are going to be holding this shirt up next to their Yves Saint Laurent in a fit of indecision, but this would make any best shirt of all time list I ever come up with. In an age when pure design has taken a back seat to moisture wicking fibers, action panels, performance enhancing mesh, and whatever other technological qualities used to make the shirt seem like Venom’s alien symbiote costume, the approach taken here was very refreshing. As Marseille appear to be wearing a garbage bag in some matches this season, I miss it already.

2. Arsenal 1991-92

‘The bruised banana.’ This shirt, along with similarly bold designs for Manchester United and Liverpool, has a way of polarizing opinion. The traditionalists, who favor simple, unbranded shirts, hand knit scarves, and rosettes, considered it an embarrassing abomination. Compared to some other shirts from the same era, this shirt was downright subtle. Maybe I’m overanalyzing, but I always thought these shirts worked perfectly in the wider social context of the time. I couldn’t see AC Milan or Real Madrid lining up in this shirt, but in hip, young London, even boring boring Arsenal just looked right in it.

1. West Ham United 1985-86

This shirt caused something of a stir when it was released. There was a large segment of public opinion that regarded it as a desecration of the classic West Ham colors. I suppose you could argue that West Ham have always been more of a tradition club than a modern, forward looking one, but that’s hardly the shirt’s fault. Obviously I’m biased, but I think any club would be glad to have this as their shirt, which I always thought this shirt was the perfect approach to modernizing a classic design. At least West Ham had their best league season in the club’s history while wearing it.