Whilst rummaging in the loft I uncovered this great catalogue dating from 1990 (I think) and featuring a plethora of seldom seen international club and country shirts. My focus was and still is on British kits but theres some cracking ones here. Take a peek…
Didnt think it was possible John but you’ve excelled yourself here.
The Cremonese sponsor sums it up perfectly.
Some great shirts there, especially in Brazil.
Nike’s branding on kits was far far better than what it is today
.
The lack of big name brands in Italy back then is hard to believe.
WTF is going on with switzerland’s shirts!
I used to love these ads in Shoot!
Also good to see my favourite-ever shirt (Cork City) in there
Other observations:
How lazy were Penalty? They gave basically the same black-and-white striped shirt to three Brazilian teams who had Coca-Cola as sponsors.
Also, I had never seen that Holland shirt before.
I too like Denis was partial to these ads in Shoot and Match in the late 80s/early 90s. Bring back alot of fond memories. Have to say i absolutely love that Boca shirt. I cant tell why 😉
Thanks chaps!
Did Holland actually wear that shirt I wonder?
One thing that struck me is just how big the sponsors logos are. Clearly there were no rules outside the UK on logo size.
Also check out the Atalanta away – bit of an adidas rip off.
Quality find as always John, World Soccer still carries similar adverts but of the modern variety.
Brilliant. I thought I’d never see this again. This was my first experience of that Cork City shirt and I seem to remember there being an earlier ad which featured the previous l’OM shirt. I actually own one of the above shirts, but I won’t tell you which as you won’t be able to get over the jealousy.
Did anyone ever buy anything from them? The reason I ask is that there doesn’t seem to have been many of some of those shirts in circulation in the last 20+ years, so I wonder if an order for the likes of the West Germany 1990 Away was ever fulfilled.
Jay if it’s the PSG Nike away that you own then jealously won’t come close to the emotion I’d feel…
No, John – I tend to steer clear of PSG kits. That Olympique Lyonnais shirt would be pretty popular too, I’d guess. Judging by how sought-after Deportivo Wanka shirts are.
This brings back some memories! Like others, I used to love looking at these adverts in Shoot back in the day. They all felt so exotic – it was rare back then to ever actually see these shirts in action.
Lovely stuff.
Some stunning shirts there, I don’t think I could even pick out a favourite, 1990 a time in football kit history which is special as it was just before football shirts started to get crazy in the 90’s (excerpting the Swiss shirts as they look mental!)
These kits just look timeless, absolutely brilliant, there’s something special about the Italian shirts, probably at the height of Serie A’s reputation, I can still remember watching Channel 4 highlights!
I’d forgotten just how hideous French shirts of that era were.
Does any one the manufacturer’s name of the Italian shirts with the nr logo. I wondered at the time but never managed to find out. Also what make is the Bordeaux shirt?
The company with the ‘nr logo was called Ennerre (spelling may be wrong), which sounded like those two letters in Spanish (I think). They made Barcelona’s kits too
When did they do Barca’s kits Den? I know they had Meyba for most of the 80’s.
They didn’t Drew, I got mixed up
Cheers D!
Denis – re post no. 13 – Thank’s for the info re Ennerre, although you did briefly throw me with the Barca reference!
Yeah, sorry about that, just a brain-fart based on logos consisting of letters!
It’s interesting to see such aggressive branding on the kits. Something we are only just getting used to over here perhaps? I remember the arsenal 93 kits were covered in adidas stripes on the shoulder and it was frowned upon back then. The creativity of these shirts is to be admired though. The west Germany and sampdoria kits are real classics.
The new German shirt had the potential to rival the 1990 one IMO, if they had gone like the bottom left here http://designfootball.com/design-galleries/fantasy-football-shirts/germany-2014-15214
As a Bundesliga/Bayern Munchen follower, I was already familiar with the German shirts – I don’t think there was any restriction on logo size as right from the start of shirt sponsorship in Germany they were HUGE.
Interesting point about Gladbach – starting in the mid 70’s the club badge sat beneath the sponsor (as here).
Also, I have photo’s of Rudi Voller wearing a Bremen shirt with the Puma cat facing backwards – definitely not a picture error as the sponsor is the right way round.
Eintracht had some ‘interesting’ shirts in the early 90’s – they experimented with their traditional stripes (including the name and number on the back) at a jaunty angle.
We shall never see their like again…! Perhaps because football and fashion are so closely linked these days, it has led to a general ‘safeness’. Not always a bad thing, but for me the West Germany away from 1990 is a design classic (and also resurrected as an adidas originals shirt).
One last thing – Wettingen are NOT German – they (were) Swiss. The Bundesliga has always had slight misinformation in England – the other day I read on text that Ralf Rangnick (described as the Schalke 04 manager) was the favourite amongst fans to take over at West Brom…He left the Gelsenkirchen club 3 years ago!
I remember a lot of these adverts for overseas shirts in the old football magazines and it used to be very interesting looking some of the brilliant/crazy/ugly designs that a lot of the top foreign clubs (and some obscure ones!) wore at the time, in those pre-internet/pre-SKY TV days.
Got to love the spelling mistakes of some of the team names too, especially the Brazilian sides – “Palmaries”, “Mineires”, “Vasco da Garma” 🙂
Oh wow! Had the Germany,ireland,marseille and Sweden shirts
I worked in a sports shop at the time and had the
Adidas rep pestered! I used to pay trade price
Them. £11.60!!!! That’s in irish old money!
Also had that Bordeaux shirt and the mental
Switzerland shirt too! Can’t remember who made
The Bordeaux shirt but the Swiss shirt was blackey!
Good times!
Actually the Bordeaux shirt was sport 2000.
Had the Nantes shirt too but not the one I. The pic.
It must be from the previous or following year. It was made by Patrick!
Do you still have them Colin? Sounds like a great collection!
It was! I moved out if the parents house and
Left them in the attic while I settled into the
New house. Went back to get them and they had disappeared.
That was late 90s. I might speak to my parents again but maybe not! 🙂
I remember that advert very well in one of the old Shoot mags that I used to buy!! The most notable was the Swiss kits made by Blacky – they were more known for their cycling jerseys, and boy does it show in this case!!
Another shirt that catches my eye, as it did back in the day, is the Borussia Dortmund shirt made by Nike. The most interesting thing is that at the time the Nike shirts were actually made in the UK – I actually bought a Dortmund shirt for a tenner in 1993 from my local JJB sports. It wasn’t the one shown in the ad, it was a version that I think was a couple of seasons later.
There is another shirt worthy of mention, namely the Olympique Lyon shirt. Right about now I am currently watching a match between Lyon and PSG, and it is startling how similar the shirt in the ad looks like the one on the telly right now – apart from the adidas stripes of the 2014 version. And the sponsors.
Sorry to plug a rival site john but keeping with the 1990 them http://kirefootballkits.blogspot.ie/ has updated many of the 1990 World cup kits on his site. Worth a look. Keep True Colours open in another tab to come back too though 😉
I have the Milan home, Sampdoria, Germany away, Brazil home, and the Cork City shirt but with a Shamrock badge instead of the Cork badge. Love these ads, used to scan Shoot every week in the hope I’d get one of the shirts. Always wanted the Marseille, Napoli and Juve shirts.
Oh i also had the Ireland and Barca home shirts.
I remember a market stall near where I worked having the Brazilian and Austrian shirts on sale for £15 !! I kept looking at the Gremio and Vasco shirts in particular as I walked past on lunch….didn’t buy them and bitterly regret it now…how nice are the Milan and Juve shirts? Remind me of Platini and Baresi and how shirts should look …cheers for this.
1990 is very nostalgic for me. I got that classic West Germany home shirt, one of my all time favourites. Also, I was able to buy the Ireland home shirt, sans “Opel”, on a weekend trip to London. That Netherlands shirt was definetly not worn during Italia 90 and I don’t recall seeing it before. The Bayern Munich home shirt didn’t have a badge, but the away had? Interesting.
Iain, would you have a pic of that Cork City shirt with the different badge?
I have been slumming it on football shirt culture with a right shower of keyboard warriors. Never realised True Colours had a comments section. Love John Devlin’s books. Very happy. I had that Holland shirt. Not sure if they wore it. The Italia 90 strip had a collar & was a real back to basics effort!