Our third guest blog is by renowned football author John Devlin, writer of cultish kit book ‘True Colours’. Here, he recalls his earliest fascination with football shirts.

John Devlin

“My love of football kits began back in 1978 when I borrowed the Observer Book of Football from my local library. This small, inconspicuous tome included a few pages depicting shirt colours of every current British league team at the time. This fascinated me and from then on I was often found carefully drawing and colouring football kits on the scraps of paper and cereal boxes.

I realised early on that kit designs changed, although of course back then the alterations, on the whole, were much more infrequent then they are today meaning that when a new design was worn it caused, for us few kit aficionados, a real sense of excitement. When the continental kit revolution of 1980 arrived and a new wave of slick, shiny strips appeared in the English game I reached for my felt tip pens in earnest. Sponsorship and pinstripes only made the designs better (for some reason, I LOVED seeing sponsors logos on shirts – still do in fact!) although replicating them with primitive felt tip pens caused me no end of grief.

Back then, as a young lad, I was a Liverpool fan – this was back in the era of Dalglish, Souness, McDermott etc when the Anfield side were the only sensible choice for a small boy getting into football for the first time. And it was a Liverpool kit that really ignited my passion and, some would say obsession, for football kits.

John's favoruite Liverpool kids

As I mentioned although I knew and accepted that kit designs changed, for some curious reason I had assumed that the classic white V-neck kit with yellow Umbro logo and Liver Bird badge as worn by the mighty Reds would never be replaced. It was too complete and too perfect – plus it was the only home strip I had ever known them to wear. Besides, in my understanding, as a small boy, Liverpool were untouchable and the normal day to day trappings of the football world didn’t concern them.
How wrong I was.

From www.truecoloursfootballkits.com

As I sat in our living room in August 1982 listening to the commentary of the Liverpool vs Spurs Charity Shield match my whole world was turned up down in a moment when I heard the commentator mention that Liverpool were wearing a new, silky, pinstriped kit. Time slowed, the room blurred and I gazed open mouthed at the radio. No, I thought, it must be a mistake; it can’t be…not, a new kit! A strange cocktail of emotions swept through me. The horror of realising that Liverpool were mortal and that I would never again see them in that exquisitely simple white V-necked red shirt and that the changing fashions of football applied to them as well, was swiftly replaced by a sudden sublime euphoria ….a new kit! A NEW KIT!!! I was simultaneously repelled and attracted by the notion. I couldn’t wait to see it – the excitement was unbearable. I rushed out to tell my Mum, “Mum, Liverpool have got a new kit…” and here’s the bombshell; “with pinstripes!” I doubt my Mum uttered the cliché “That’s nice dear”, but it sure wasn’t far from it.

And that was it. The thrill of the new and the rejection of the old. With the acceptance that it was right and proper that even the greatest of kits would need to eventually change my life gained purpose. I knew from that moment on that I must document and draw the ever-changing world of football kits to ensure that the designs the teams wore were recorded for posterity.

John Devlin is the author behind the fantastic True Colours football books, www.truecoloursfootballkits.com