February has been amazing, what a month this has been for my collection, a holy grail shirt added and I'm over the moon! Let's get right down to it.
A couple of weeks ago I was fortunate to acquire a 1986 Brighton and Hove Albion away shirt, this one;
This shirt was never made available for sale to the public, and was only worn for the second half of the 1985/1986 season.
The number 8 shirt was worn most often by Steve Penney in the away games that season.
The embroidered team badge and is significant, players shirts traditionally had embroidery rather than embossed or heat pressed badges, this goes back to the Bukta days between 1977-1980 and on through to 1991, although the first Adidas kits, 1980-1983 had flocked badges for both players and fans replicas.
This shirt is part of a batch of shirts that were uncovered, what a stunning sight.
February had a few more surprises and delights, and of course rarely it seems a month goes by when I don‘t add a Brighton goalies shirt to my collection, so here we go;
This is a Peter Brezovan matchworn home ‘keepers shirt from the 2013-2014 season.
And this is an academy match shirt from 2019-2020;
...and here we have both long sleeve and short sleeve versions of the 2015-2016 home goalies shirts.
In the 2020/2021 FA Cup Brighton drew Newport County in the 3rd round, the match was played at Newport’s Rodney Parade Stadium, not the greatest of games which finished 1-1 after extra time. Brighton’s ‘keeper made the crucial saves for Brighton to win the penalty shoot-out. Newport put their match shirts up for auction to raise funds after the game, and I managed to win one of them, a cracking Hummel design, very pleased with this.
The shirt I won in the auction was worn by Lewis Collins in the game, and as you can see the shirt features an [Emirates] FA Cup sleeve patch.
Another staple of my collecting diet comes from North America, in particular the USA, and February was no exception.
I took the plunge and joined the Providence City FC members club, The Rogues. This got me a fantastic goodie bag and a tidy discount on their “Treat Yo’ Self“ special edition 2020 shirt.
and all the Rogues stickers, scarves, badges, key fobs, COVID masks, and a knapsack that I could ever need.
Fresno FC 2018 home shirt.
Jacksonville Armada home from 2015-2016,
Here’s a player specification (adizero) home shirt of Orlando City from 2015-2016.
Finally from North America here is a Vancouver Whitecaps away shirt from 2004-2005, with really neatly embroidered Maple Leaf emblems on each sleeve.
And now a selection from far and farther away.
First we have the special edition Puma shirt made for the World Cup in 2010. The idea was that this would be used as the third shirt of a number of African nations who Puma were sponsoring during the World Cup Finals in South Africa.
In reality I think it was worn in a a number of warm up matches and maybe a couple of qualification games.
Each shirt came with a bag containing beautifully embroidered country badges to allow you to whip out the iron and customise your shirt to the nation of your choice.
Now I’ve been trying to add some jerseys from the Indian Super League for a few years, and finally I found one of the teams not only selling shirts, but also offering shipping to the UK.
This is the 2021 home shirt of FC Goa, and as it happens this is also a player specification version.
So come on the rest of the Indian Super League, you’re missing a trick, us footie shirt collectors are a bit daft, you make your shirts available, and we’ll buy them!
And lastly for February, my catnip maybe, this is a shirt of Esentepe Spor Kulübü who play in the Football League in Northern Cyprus.
The more observant of you will have noticed that this is not actually a genuine Adidas shirt, nevertheless this is a genuine Esentepe shirt, it even features the Turkcell 2 Lig sleeve patch. It’s not unusual in North Cyprus leagues for teams to wear fake Teamwear, even the national side has been know to wear fake branded shirts in the past!
That was a cracking month for collecting, you don’t get many that good, I wonder what March will bring.
To see loads more amazing football shirts from all over the world take a look at my website www.oldfootballshirts.com.