Welcome to another edition of Fantasy Five Hundred, a new feature where we give a guest an imaginary £500 budget to spend on football shirts! What will they choose, new or old, quantity or quality, club or country? Let’s find out…
Today’s guest is Wünderkits, a Manchester Ünited fan who’s also partial to some 90s Eüro long sleeved beaüties. Withoüt fürther ado, here are his picks…
DORTMUND 96/97 EURO HOME
Wunderkits: “Borussia Dortmund home CL shirt – worn (except in the final!) as BVB won CL. One of the few I’m missing from the 90-98 Nike/Die Continental/Volt Yellow era.”
Cost: £140, Total so far: £140
Owning a 90s Dortmund shirt seems almost like a rite of passage for most collectors, it’s easy to see why. Fluorescent yellow and black is a great combination and the Ramberg designed Nike shirts were turning heads in an era arguably dominated by Adidas.
EINTRACHT FRANKFURT AWAY 93/95
Wunderkits: “Much harder to find than the matching red home shirt, another unmistakeably 90s strip with a cool geometrical pattern.”
Cost: £117, Total so far: £257
Now, we go on about sponsors ruining shirts with ugly logos or taking up too much space, but what we forget is that not too long ago shirts were the sponsors. Eintracht Frankfurt looked striking in this Tetra Pak branded away, to compliment the home which had the same template but in red. It might be corporate branding but the geometric pattern and primary colours look like modern art. Slap an old school Puma logo on there and you’ve got one hell of a shirt.
KOLN AWAY 97/98
Wunderkits: “Rich orange colour, distinctive honeycomb pattern and a huge local employer as sponsor.”
Cost: £85, Total so far: £342
Now, for these features I usually like to get an ‘in action’ picture of the shirt, but no documented evidence for this one exists. I couldn’t even find a normal photograph, instead having to settle for an autographed promo picture. It’s hard to see why the shirt is so camera shy, a flame red torso coupled with bold orange arms that have a stark white geometric pattern overlay. The combination of both of these only serves to make the sponsor, the blue oval of Ford, stand out even more. Once again we see that old school Puma King logo too, this time the cat leaping in tandem with the goat on Koln’s crest.
ATHLETIC BILBAO HOME 97/98
Wunderkits: “Like the orange Porto ‘dragon’ shirt of the same season, a bold Kappa classic.”
Cost: £87, Total so far: £429
Another shirt I struggled to find a picture of. If I could find a higher res version you’d see that the pattern on the front is of a lion, deviating from their usual stripes for this centenary special. Classic Kappa taping down both sleeves and a boxy cut means this shirt oozes 90s charm.
VITESSE AWAY 98/99
Wunderkits: “Lotto, huge sublimated sponsor, striking jacquard crest pattern and a beautiful badge – hitting all the best 90s shirt cliches!”
Cost: £51, Grand total: £480
Lotto don’t get talked about enough when we think of classic shirts. And this one definitely deserves to be talked about, not least because of the asymmetrical sleeve colours.
Call these shirts anything except predictable. The mid 90s was the apex of football shirt design (don’t @ me) and these choices prove it. Big thanks to Wunderkits for taking part, make sure to give him a follow on Twitter (@Wunderkits). Do you have a favourite? How would you spend differently? Head over to Twitter to discuss! The next Fantasy Five Hundred will be coming soon!
Kit For Brains 
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