To start with we're going to take a look at how Arsenal came to wear the famous red and white that makes they're renowned for today. Our journey takes us through their early days in Woolwich, their move across to North London and leaving Highbury for the state of the art Emirates Stadium in 2006.
Arsenal began life under the guise of Dial Square in 1886 when they were formed by workers at the armaments factory in Woolwich, South London. It was widely believed that Nottingham Forest donated a set of red shirts to the new club although this has since been disproven and in fact the colour was adopted by one of the club's founding fathers, Fred Beardsley, who happened to be a native of the Nottingham area. The club wore red shirts with white knickers and black socks for the majority of their formative years save for six years when they swapped the white knickers for blue (see below).
The colour white appeared on Arsenal's shirt for the first time in 1905 when a white collar was added in addition to slightly shorter shorts. The socks also harboured a trim for the first time with two stripes added to the tops.
After white collars and trim returned to the shirts in 1928, the most dramatic change to happen to Arsenal's kits came in March 1933, two years after the club had won the league championship for the first time.
The colours we all associate Arsenal with were introduced as the plain red shirts were replaced by red jerseys with white sleeves. The move coincided with the club's first real heyday as The Gunners added four further league titles (including three in a row between 1933 and 1935) to their 1931 triumph as well as the 1936 FA Cup, the second of their record fourteen victories in that competition. The origin of the colourway is unknown although there have been two commonly accepted stories. The first stemmed from legendary manager Herbert Chapman who allegedly spotted a supporter in the Highbury stands wearing a red sleeveless pullover with a white shirt while the other story is purported around Chapman's golfing partner, satirist Tom Webster, wearing a similar outfit during one of their regular rounds of 18.
The white sleeves became the norm until two seasons between 1965 and 1967 when the white sleeves were ditched in place of an all red jersey with a white round neck and cuffs. The white sleeves were reintroduced in time for the 1967-68 season although the all red shirts made a brief comeback in September 1967 for games against West Brom and Newcastle.
The all red shirts were the first in an association with Umbro which would last twenty years with the Manchester based manufacturer supplying what has gone down in history as one of the most iconic Gunners kits of all time which was worn between 1969 and 1978. Under the stewardship of Bertie Mee, Arsenal tasted European success for the first time in 1970 when they captured the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup before adding the First Division title in 1971 (claiming the title with a 1-0 win over arch-rivals Tottenham Hotspur) before throwing in the FA Cup for good measure to secure the club's first 'double'. A slight alteration was made in 1978 when Umbro's logo was added to the shirt for the first time.
Red shirts with white sleeves remained all the way through to 2005 and Arsenal's final season at Highbury with minor alterations coming usually in the way of supplier's branding, prevalent between 1986 and 1994 when Adidas' three stripes adorned the shirts. Nike added a blue trim to the shirts and shorts in 1998, first adding it as a breaker between the body of the shirts and the sleeves before moving it to the sleeves themselves in 2000.
The blue was removed in 2002 with just red and white featuring on the new kits, which were derived from the template Nike had produced for the 2002 FIFA World Cup, the 2002-2004 home kit will forever go down in Arsenal folklore as it was worn when the club went the entirety of the 2003-2004 Premier League season unbeaten earning them the 'Invincibles' tag.
For the club's final season before moving from Highbury, a commemorative kit was produced in 'redcurrant' which was erroneously believed to be the club's colours when they moved to North London in 1913 although the misconception has since been put down to a discoloured photograph. The shirt was worn as The Gunners gave their old ground a fitting send-off, beating Wigan Athletic on the final day of the 2005-06 Premier League season to secure qualification for the Champions League.
While the popular red/white colourway returned for the club's first season at the new Emirates Stadium in 2006-07, a slight alteration was made in 2008 when the white sleeves were replaced with a white stripe and a 'redcurrant' trim. This kit was played in for two consecutive seasons (2008-09 and 2009-10).
As Arsenal have moved through different kit manufacturers (Nike, Puma and Adidas), the red and white shirts have remained the same. Only one difference came in Nike's final kit made for the club (worn in the 2012-13 and 2013-14 seasons) when a blue band was added to the shirt towards the bottom of the sleeves along with a round neckline in the same colour.
After returning to Adidas in 2019, this is the kit Arsenal will be donning in their home games during the 2020-21 season.
That brings to a close our look back through Arsenal kit history. I hope you have enjoyed our nostalgia trip. If you have any favourite Gunners kits in your collection why not get in touch and show off your shirts on Twitter where I can be found @BarkerGray2.
We'll be back next week with a look back through the kit history of another top club but in the meantime, take care and stay safe.
Copyright Historical Football Kits and reproduced by kind permission.
No comments:
Post a Comment