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. As angry as it made him, he refused to negotiate with terrorists.
Looking back, though, I don’t think my sartorial choices were that bad. If anything, I was ahead of the curve. Football shirts, you see, are big business. Real Madrid’s kit deal with Adidas is worth almost £1.5 billion. There are many reasons why: after all, big teams sell shirts in big numbers. But increasingly, they are becoming recognised more and more for their aesthetics. Some are even becoming ‘labels’ in themselves.
The game’s fashion has evolved in strange ways since the casualwear of the terraces in the 1980s brought the world Stone Island and Sergio Tacchini. It’s no longer just about displaying your club’s colours — now there are statements to be made about taste.
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