It’s not just hooligans – hipsters also love a football shirt

When I was young, from about the age of nine to 13, I went through what my parents recall with a shudder as ‘the football shirt phase’. Where some children rebel by smoking, and others take to eyeliner, my vice was polyester. My first shirt was a quirky one — an early Noughties AS Bari white and red home shirt with an itchy collar. The thing smelled of washing powder no matter how much I wore it — which was daily for the best part of three months one very hot Italian summer.

I’d wear football shirts everywhere, from family meals to drinks parties, trips into town and to Mass. It got to a point where my father would explode with rage if I appeared at the door wearing a baggy AC Milan kit. He would threaten to leave me behind unless I changed — but of course he never did, knowing that an afternoon on the sofa was what I was angling for.