The Wonderful World of the Soccer Kit

Incidentally, let us get rid of the notion here that soccer jerseys are an expensive item that do not offer particularly good value for money. The average soccer jersey costs between £30 and £40. Nowadays the fashion conscious teen will spend that money on a flimsy cotton t-shirt that is good for about 2 washes before it loses its shape and the picture of beret clad Che Guevara on it looks more like Frank Spencer with the addition of dodgy facial topiary. On the other hand, soccer tops can withstand all sorts of abuse. They can be worn several times a week, splashed with hot Bovril and have tomato sauce dribbled down the front and they still wash up quite fantastically well. They are also hardwearing. Catch a cotton t-shirt on a nail and it will put a big hole in your shirt. Catch a soccer top on a nail and it will yank the nail out of the plank of wood. They have a life-expectancy about the same as enriched Uranium. For £40 you can get several children's worth out of a kit and still be able to send it off to UNICEF to help kids in developing countries to wear for the next 50 years and then sold for more than they cost as soccer memorabilia.

Let's not forget also that you are not hindered by the fact that some designer thinks that this year a picture of Andy Warhol holding a cricket bat is what will be "cool". Soccer kits come in a myriad of different colours and combinations meaning that if you don't mind wearing the colours of another team, then you can tailor it to your own personal taste. Admittedly it is hard to find any sane person who thinks that Coventry City's 1970's Brown away kit is the height of soccer sartorial elegance, but at least the option is there.

Oddly enough there is a certain amount of 'coolness' attracted to the particularly awful kits. Have you seen Newcastle's away kit this season? As if the Geordie fans haven't had a bad enough time of it of late without that monstrosity being unveiled as their new kit. The new Everton home one has, what designers would call "a retro feel", but what I would call a gargantuan white v-neck that makes the whole team look as if they've been transported to the future from the early 1980's by a soccer obsessed time lord. As for the current France home kit, is it just me or does the strange black loop design on the back, make all the players look like they are wearing a sports-bra? You have to be a confident person to wear any of these, either that or a crazed, colour-blind, mildly obsessive fan.

There are retro kits available too, so if you are a Newcastle fan who thinks their new away kit is the work of a vindictive Sunderland fan with only two working felt tips left in his pencil case, you can opt for one of the many older kits available from these stockists. They are good quality too and offer an unerring degree of authenticity when compared to the original.

There's no item of clothing that offers the variety, or states your love for the cause, more than a soccer shirt.There's no item of clothing that offers the variety, or states your love for the cause, more than a soccer shirt.