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Shirts, kits and the stories behind them

Football Shirts UK

The football shirt is the most recognisable thing a player wears and the one thing every fan owns. This site explains where shirts came from, why designs and numbers matter, which players made particular shirts famous, and how the shirt fits into the rest of the playing kit.

Every new season brings fresh home, away and third shirts, but most of what makes a shirt worth caring about is older than any single release: the colours a club has worn for a century, the number on the back, the collar that dates a photograph to within a few years. Start with whatever brought you here.

A footballer in a navy shirt with yellow trim, white shorts and navy socks, one sock cut to show a white grip sock beneath, standing on a pitch with black football boots and a dark green boot bag beside him.
The complete playing kit, from the shirt down. Each numbered part has its own guide.
  1. 1Shirt
  2. 2Shin pad
  3. 3Team sock
  4. 4Grip sock
  5. 5Football boot
  6. 6Boot bag

Explore football shirts

  • Retro football shirts

    From heavy cotton and lace-up collars to the shiny, baggy designs of the 1990s. What makes a shirt retro, and originals versus remakes.

  • Player shirts

    The numbers players made their own, replica versus match-worn shirts, and shirt histories for individual players.

  • Shirt names and numbers

    How numbers reached the back of the shirt, what 1 to 11 used to mean, and when names and squad numbers arrived.

  • The complete kit

    Shirt, shorts, shin pads, socks, grip socks and boots: what each part does and how they work together.

Why old shirts still matter

A retro shirt is a piece of football history you can wear. Cotton gave way to synthetic fabric in the 1970s and 1980s, sponsors arrived on English shirts in the late 1970s, and every decade since has had a look you can recognise at a glance.

Our guide to retro football shirts covers the main eras of design, how to tell an original from a modern reproduction, and how to look after an older shirt.

Player shirts and famous numbers

Some numbers belong to a player long after they leave a club. The 7 that Cristiano Ronaldo carried from Manchester United to Real Madrid, Juventus and Portugal. The 10 that Lionel Messi inherited at Barcelona and wore in Argentina’s 2022 World Cup final.

Start with player shirts, or read the history of shirt numbers.

How the shirt fits into the complete kit

A match kit is a set of parts that have to work together. The shirt and shorts identify the team. Under the Laws of the Game, shin pads are compulsory and sit under the socks, and any tape over a sock has to match its colour. That is one reason so many players now cut their team socks and wear grip socks underneath. Boots finish the kit, and the right ones depend on the surface.

Read the complete football kit guide, or go straight to socks and grip socks, shin pads or football boots. When you are ready to choose a pair, FootballBoots.co.uk has independent reviews and buying guides for the latest football boots.

Featured guides

About Football Shirts UK

Football Shirts UK is an independent guide to football shirts, kit history and the complete playing kit. For boot reviews and kit features on video, see the Football Boots YouTube channel. More about us.