BY all things football
I’m Ged, otherwise known as All Things Football in the football shirt community and also as a co-host of the Total Screamers Podcast. I’m Coventry City through and through, and have been collecting football shirts since 2014.
5 – England home, 2001/03
This was the first shirt I ever purchased from Classic Football Shirts! Bought with the intention of wearing down the pub for England vs Italy at the World Cup in 2014 (sadly it didn’t bring us any luck that night!). It’s always been one of my favourite England shirts and was at an affordable price on CFS at the time in comparison to some of my other favourites from the 90’s – I didn’t know at the time it would become the first of many more football shirts I’d collect though.
4 – Hansa Rostock home, 2019/20
It’s weird how you can fall in love with a football club. I needed a new Football Manager save last year and wanted to take a European club up from the lower leagues to their top division – I landed on Germany and picked Hansa Rostock completely at random! I hadn’t heard of them or any of their players before, but quickly discovered they were a Bundesliga side in the 90’s/early 00’s and had fallen into the third division since. It was a great challenge and led to a brilliant save, I ended up winning 5 Bundesliga titles and purchased all three of their shirts from that season as I couldn’t choose which one I liked best at the time! To be honest, I still can’t decide that now but I’ve gone with their home shirt for the purposes of this! It’s beautiful!
3 – Brazil away, 1998
This shirt is incredible – it’s a lovely design from Nike and it’s from an iconic World Cup in 1998, but what makes mine so special is the name set – O Fenomeno himself! Probably my favourite footballer of all time, Ronaldo was a special player and genuinely had it all – pace, power, he could finish, tricks in the locker – what’s not to love? This shirt was one of the more expensive ones in my collection, purchased at the Classic Football Shirts shop in London, but I couldn’t leave it behind once I’d seen it.
2 – Coventry City away, 1998/99
I mean, just look at it! Yellow and purple stripes! Why it hasn’t been done again is seriously beyond me. We’re a very lucky fan base in Coventry, our kits are usually pretty nice (in recent seasons with Hummel this is an understatement, and our 90’s kits are iconic!), but this one is just beautiful. The colour ways just work, it’s a bold combination but Le Coq Sportif pulled it off – their taping on the sleeves is also a great feature and the back includes a massive yellow circle in case anyone didn’t know where to print the shirt numbers! It’s a brilliant shirt and I hope we return to the design at some point in the future – for now though, we can at least enjoy this shirt in all it’s glory!
1 – France away, 2006
Truly one of my holy grails! I loved everything about the World Cup in 2006 – England, the players (Ronaldinho, Henry, Zidane and all the rest), the Pepsi advert (google it!), the match ball – but the thing that tops it all for me is this shirt. The Adidas Teamgeist era is arguably the most iconic template of the 00’s (2nd only to Nike’s Total 90 template for me), and this shirt is the best looking of them all! The way it incorporates the French flag colours is superb, and it will always be remembered thanks to Zinedine Zidane’s moment of madness in the final! For me it’s a genuine pleasure to own it, what a shirt!
