People tell us never to judge books by their covers, but this is rarely followed. Even in football, a large amount of attention is paid to football team kits. Each and every football team have their own kit. Kits are not only necessary for a player to identify his team mate during a match, but become the identity of a club and is embedded in the club’s folklore.
Most of the kits contain the player’s name, number and a symbol of the sponsors. It is up to the designers the club hire to design a nice looking one.
However there have been many recent stories of blunders made by the designer such as Aston Villas Home 1986-1987 kit or Coventry City’s away strip of 1991-1992, not to mention Arsenal’s Away kit of 1990. Ajax’s Away kit of 1992 and Bochums Home kit of 1997-1998 made their respective teams a laughing stock in the world of football.
Most clubs usually print the player’s names on the back of the jersey, along with a number ranging from 0 to 99.
The number is used by match officials for identifying the players. The respective shirt numbers of each player of the club have to be registered with the football governing body of the country. Changing shirt numbers is generally not encouraged. The crest of the club is printed on the top left or right hand corner of the shirt. Players are expected to fell motivated and inspired every time they see the crest. Many players, after scoring a goal have the habit of kissing the club crest, in order to show their love for the club to the fans. The middle part usually displays a message or symbol of the sponsors. Considering the popularity of watching football in the world, using club’s kits for advertisement certainly boosts the marketing of a product.
The main necessity of kits is for one person to identify his team mate on the football pitch. Matches are played on huge pitches, in all kinds of weather, in front of tens of thousands of fans. In such situations, identifying team mates by looking at their faces or shouting out for the ball would be impractical. Also, football is played at such a high speed and players don’t have the time to look at each and every face before deciding who to pass to. All these aspects make kits a part and parcel of football.
Kits are also used to commemorate great events in the history of football. Black armbands are sometimes worn in order to honor the dead. Selling football kits also generate tremendous amount of income for the club as these are very popular among supporters. Thus, as you can see, football team kits are much more than just fancy pieces of cloth on multi-millionaires.