Arsenal Retro Shirts
December 14, 2008 by edd
Filed under English Club Retro
Arsenal’s red and white home shirt has become iconic over the years. However, Arsenal players haven’t always worn those famous colours. When the club (Woolwich Arsenal) was formed in 1886 no money was available to purchase kits, two ex Nottingham Forest players working at the Woolwich Arsenal solved the problem by writing to their old club and asking for help. A few weeks later a ball and a ‘redcurrent’ coloured kit arrived courtesy of Nottingham Forest.
The iconic red and white colours Arsenal play in today were introduced during the Herbert Chapman era in the 1930′s. It’s still unclear how the combination of the white sleeves and pill box red body panel came about, one story suggest Chapman saw a fan in the crowd with a red sleeveless jumper over a white shirt and thought it made a striking combination. Whatever the reasons the Arsenal team have used the colour scheme ever since. Apart from the 2005–06, the last season that Arsenal played at Highbury, when the team wore commemorative redcurrant shirts similar to those worn in 1913, their first season in the stadium.
Arsenals yellow away shirt has also been popular with the fans over the years. Largely due to the fact that Arsenal have pulled off some memorable victories whilst wearing it: In 1971 Arsenal beat Liverpool 2-1 in the F.A. Cup to complete a League and Cup double. Arsenal wore yellow in the last game of the season in 1989 against Liverpool, a last minute goal from Michael Thomas won the league title for Arsenal at fortress Anfield.
1971 home shirt = probably one of our best shirts ever.