England Retro Shirts

England remains one of only seven national teams to have ever lifted the World Cup. In 1966 at Wembley Stadium England beat West Germany wearing the iconic red away shirt. The red England football shirt is still a favorite with fans and attempts by the F.A. to change the away kit to grey in 1996 led to a backlash from the media and fans. The grey kit was only worn for three matches before being withdrawn.

The white home shirt has remained largely unchanged since Englands first international game against Scotland in 1872, occasionally extra coloured piping or flashes have been added to the shirt, the 1982 World Cup in Spain saw England add red, white and blue shoulder panels. In recent years the Cross of St. George has also been added to many shirt designs. Occasionally England have needed to play in a third kit, this has mainly been all blue, the 1970 World Cup match against Czechoslovakia in Mexico is one of the few occasions this shirt has been worn in a match.

There are many iconic England shirts, Gazza famously dried his eyes on his shirt after being knocked out of Italia 90, Terry Butcher turn his white shirt red with blood during a a vital World Cup qualifier in Sweden, Bobby Moore swapped his England shirt with Pele after an epic match in the 1970 World Cup. The most iconic of all England shirts will remain the red away shirt worn by Bobby Moore as he lifted the World Cup in Wembley in front of the home crowd.

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German Retro Shirts

Germany’s team’s home kit has always been a white jersey and black shorts which derived from the 19th century flag of the north German State of Prussia. The away jersey color has changed several times but historically a green shirt with white shorts is the most often used alternative color combination but other colours such as grey and black have also been used. The last change, from black to red, came in November 2004 on the request of Jürgen Klinsmann, citing that teams in red are statistically more successful and he hoped to use the red away shirt as first choice for the 2006 World Cup but Germany played every game at the 2006 World Cup in its home white colors.

In the 1954 World Cup, West Germany, captained by Fritz Walter played favorites Hungary in the group stage and suffered an incredible 3-8 loss. They went on to meet Hungary again in the final, facing the legendary team of Mighty Magyars again, which had gone unbeaten for 32 consecutive matches. In a shocking upset, West Germany came back from an early two goal deficit to win 3-2, with Helmut Rahn scoring the winning goal with only six minutes remaining. The success is called “The Miracle of Bern” and the unexpected victory created a sense of euphoria throughout a divided postwar Germany. The triumph is credited with playing a significant role in securing the postwar ideological foundation of the Federal Republic of Germany. They’ve even made a film about it – Das Wunder von Bern!

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Scotland Retro Shirts

The Scottish national side are the joint oldest international team in the world, alongside England. The two teams played the worlds first international match on the 30th November 1872 at West of Scotland Cricket Club’s ground at Hamilton Crescent in Partick. The match was watched by over 4000 fans and ended in a 0-0 draw.

All 11 Scottish players were selected from the popular Queens Park Football Club in Glasgow, and the Scottish players wore the Dark Blue shirts of Queens Park for the match. The dark blue has been worn by the Scottish national side ever since. The match itself was a strange affair, England played the match with two defenders and eight forwards! The English goalkeeper also played outfield during match after swapping positions with William Maynard. Scotland came closest to winning the match, they had a goal disallowed in the first half and hit the tape (the crossbar hadn’t been invented yet!) in the last minutes of the game.

From these early internationals to the world cup finals Scotland have been involved in some classic games over the years. One of Scotland’s most memorable victories came against the old enemy and then world champions England at Wembley in 1967. Goals from Denis Law, Bobby Lennox and Jim McCalliog sent the traveling Tartan army into a frenzy.

In 1978 Scotland travelled to Argentina for the World Cup finals.  After a poor campaign, Scotland were determined to go out with a bang, and they did just that in an epic match with eventually finalist Holland. Kenny Dalglish cancelled out Rob Rensenbrink’s opener before midfielder Archie Gemmill struck twice, including his famous dribble around the entireDutch defence.

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Brazil Retro Shirts

The Brazilian national teams first ever match was against English club side Exeter City in 1914! To this day Exeter fans claim to have taught Brazilians how to play football!  The result of the game (a 2 – 0 defeat for Exeter) suggest that the Brazilians already had a fairly good grasp of the basic rules. The famous quote about the game of football is ”The English invented it, the Brazilians perfected it.”

When we think of the Brazil team we always imagine the famous yellow shirts and electric blue shorts, but Brazil only started to wear the yellow and blue kit from the mid 1950’s. Before then Brazil flirted with a number of different colour combinations including: Red shirts & white shorts, white shirt & white shorts, yellow & green vertical striped shirts, yellow & black striped shirts and a few more variations besides! After an embarrassing defeat at home in the 1950 world cup the Brazilian public blamed the current kit (white shirt with blue collars) for the lose! claiming it wasn’t patriotic enough.

In 1951 a Brazilian daily newspaper held a competition to design a kit incorporating the four colours of the Brazilian flag. The design of nineteen year old Aldyr Garcia Schlee from the town of Pelotas was chosen as the winning entry. The new kit of yellow shirt with green trim and blue shirts echoed the design of the brazilian flag perfectly. The kit was first used in 1954 and has remained largely unchanged ever since.

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