The power of the football shirt

What is it that gives a club its identity? There is the history, the stadium, the managers, the players and the fans.

But perhaps nothing identifies a club more than the shirt. Worn down the years by every player, changed regularly – sometimes controversially – but always there to identify a club.

Every supporter has a favourite shirt. Whether eight or 80 years old, once fans have seen their team play the shirt means something special. The older we get the more we become attached to certain shirts – more likely the ones involving successful times or from childhood when supporting a football club was a far more romantic ideal than it is in adult life.

This week one Wolverhampton Wanderers supporter will launch a book that has been painstakingly researched over two years of his life. ‘They Wore The Shirt’ is a chronological record of 140 years of the club’s changing strips, including up-to-date photographs of every known shirt that has survived from the club’s long history. Author and collector Steve Plant came up with the idea as a tribute to his father, a dyed-in-the-wool Wanderer, who he lost to cancer four years ago.

“As football fans there is nothing we relate to more when supporting our teams than the colours,” Plant explains. “Just by specifying a shirt in old gold and black you know instantly it’s the colours of Wolverhampton Wanderers. The first game I saw was against Manchester United in 1969 and I have been a fanatic ever since.

“My first hero was John Richards and then Steve Bull after that. It was a fantastic feeling when both of them turned up for the first photo shoot, John with his 1974 League Cup Final shirt.”

Plant readily admits …

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