A Short History of Football Kits
While it's known that football was played in the Middle Ages, it wasn't till the nineteenth century that the idea of a football strip was first incorporated in to the "beautiful game".
As more and more teams were established, it became necessary to find some way of identifying the two different teams. So, the idea of each team wearing different and specific colours was developed.
Football originally was seen as a winter game, to keep cricketers busy in their off seasons. It's for that reason that the first football kits were in fact cricket outfits, including the caps. But, as popularity in the game increased, some players became dedicated to football and abandoned cricket.
Originally, footballers wore the white cricketers outfit, with coloured caps. So the Sheffield team for example wore caps with a red and blue design. That was the only way to distinguish the different teams, so on windy days it could be a challenge knowing who was on which side with football caps flying off everywhere!
This soon changed however as in 1870 the English Football Association asked all teams to wear coloured "uniforms" so that spectators could clearly identify each team. That also meant the death knell for the football cap! But while different teams had different colours, that didn't mean that all the patterns were the same. As players had to buy their own strip, and the only stipulation was the choice of colours, you often ended up with team players all wearing differently designed kit.
As the game became more popular and more international fixtures were played though, teams started to standardise their designs, many going for vertical stripes or solid blocks of colour as they were easier to make up.
During all the early years of football, players either had full time jobs, or were independently wealthy. As the game developed though, some players started to treat the game more seriously, as did the people who managed the teams. Over the years this once amateur game developed in to more professional organisations. And as teams started to find and develop new players who might not be able to afford all the kit, they started to use one unified design for all their players.
As the costs of the game were now rising (kits, trainers, wages etc), team owners looked beyond just ticket sales to make money, and that's when we saw football clubs starting to sell souvenir football kits to their fans.
Where once years ago a football club had one design they used all year, year in and year out, today it is most definitely not that simple. With home colours, away colours, different designs each year due to changing sponsors, new players with new numbered and names football kit, the souvenir football kit is an important part of the fund raising strategy for all football teams - despite how much you might moan about it!
More Football Shirt and Football Kit Info:
Football Shirts - A brief history of the Football Shirt
New Football Kits
Retro Football Shirts
Cheap Football Shirts