When Mexico’s soccer team faces South Africa at the Azteca stadium on June 11 to open the event — which is held in Mexico, Canada and the United States — the eyes of the world will be on 22 players. And in 20 t-shirts. 20 because those of the goalkeepers and those of the referees and linesmen – although they compete in sophistication and renewal – have not yet entered the market of continuous renewal that characterizes these garments and that supplies .
For years, the shapes and designs of football players’ jerseys—the two biggest selling sports—remained as unchanged as the team colors. In recent decades, however, football shirts have become an increasingly imaginative market that invades the streets and . In the clubs, three kits are shuffled, plus the one for training, and nothing remains, except the colors. This evanescence is curious when t-shirts, almost as a sign of identification, are increasingly present in our cities. They are worn by tourists who visit them and buy them as souvenirs or as, perhaps, an attempt to get closer to the local culture. Given so much change in design—much greater than the change in number among the players—it is worth asking about the memory of these new kits.
Some of the history of football serve as a reference for unforgettable matches, achievements and even personal moments. You know: we tend to remember where we were, and with whom, and… do you remember it? He took off his shirt to pay tribute to his missing friend: “”. That kit, already as historic as the goal that would win Spain the 2010 World Cup, is today in the Museum of the Real Club Deportivo Español. It pays tribute to the memory of Jarque, the good work of Iniesta and values such as friendship and effort.
The largest archive of t-shirts vintage in the world contains more than 7,000 researched and documented garments. It was founded in Manchester in 2006 by two friends – Doug Bierton and Matthew Dale – who, unable to find a West Germany shirt from 1990, when that team won the World Cup, had the idea of recovering historical shirts to prevent their disappearance. They were students. They filled their rooms with t-shirts and thus the archive was born Classic Football Shirts, which started out buying and selling rare football kits and today has two stores in the United Kingdom, two in the United States and more than 1.5 million followers on Instagram. However, it keeps more than 7,000 pieces intact in its archive.
The first shirt that Doug Bierton, one of the two founders, had was for Manchester United. It was given to him when he turned seven in May 1992. The following week a new Umbro kit appeared. That change settled in the boy’s head, who every year, for his birthday or Christmas, wanted a t-shirt, not his own, any other. He accumulated so many that the children of his parents’ friends gave him the ones they no longer wanted: the one for Naples with Mars as a sponsor, for example. Thus, studying the shirts, he came to Italian football. To Baggio or Ennio Tardini and, from there, to search for football on VHS: the World Cup in Italy, with Riijkaard spitting on Völler or the mascot Ciao.
The other partner in the company and the archive, Matthew Dale, was six years old when, at Highbury, he saw Arsenal play against Leeds. Although at home there was no other option than to be for Arsenal, his first shirt was for the visiting team. Dale talks about clothes that do not go on sale due to a conflict between the designs and says that, in those cases, only those worn by the players are available. That happened in the 80s and 90s. That’s why they are the most valuable. The file of Classic Football Shirts He has everything from Arsenal.
There are more anecdotes supporting this initiative. When Doug’s little brother Gary was playing football, the coach left them a box of Aston Vila kits because the colors matched the school’s. He was the only one who knew that, because of the hot-stamped number, the long sleeves and the sewn details, they had been worn by Aston Vila himself.
Bierton and Dale accumulated so much information about t-shirts that they began a search for rare pieces on e-Bay. That was the origin of his business, and his archive. At first they sold all the t-shirts. Although selling some – the first in France from Cantona – hurt them. Over time, they were able to keep the most valuable ones. Today, beyond sales, they have that archive of vintage rarities. Although it is increasingly difficult to find unique pieces, few people have the experience and information they have to recognize a t-shirt in an instant. That information is public today. Bierton and Dale share a lot of what they know in the book Football shirts (The emblematic models of the Classic Football Shirts archive), published in Spain by the Cincotintas publishing house.
