Tomorrow, December 1, sees the publication of The Spurs Shirt, a comprehensive history of Tottenham Hotspur’s kits, told through matchworn shirts.
It’s written by Simon Shakeshaft, Daren Burney and Neville Evans and, to mark the occasion, we asked Shakey to come up with a Spurs-themed FKF.
Given that the six-year period in which the club wore Hummel is so fondly remembered – see here for a close examination of Spurs’ kits – he decided to riff on that and come up with alternatives from the Danish (originally German) company.
While the 1985-87 home is regarded as one of Spurs’ best, despite the white shorts, Shakey felt it was worth trying another classic Hummel design. He is firm in his view that the classic Lilywhite Spurs look is hard to beat, but it would be a shame not to employ the style used by Denmark at the 1986 World Cup and later adopted by Aston Villa, Coventry City and Southampton.
There’s also the benefit of harking back to the club’s 1885-87 shirt, which was revived for their 125th anniversary in 2007.
In real-life, Spurs’ 1985 away was sky-blue – it wasn’t until 1986 that they had a navy third, meaning the kit they wore at Manchester City in 1985-86 caused the hosts to switch to their away.
However, to allow proper mixing and matching in this alternative world, we’ve decided to go with navy, a reversal of the actual home kit. Taking the precedent of Denmark’s away kit against Spain’s red, we doubt there’d be any concerns of the home kit clashing with blue.
Along with navy, the other classic Spurs change colour is yellow, though it wasn’t until 1989 that Hummel supplied a yellow kit.
We’ve brought that forward to 1985, using the chevrons down the sides of the torso, as Norwich had when they won that year’s Milk Cup.
As always, views welcome, contact us @museumofjerseys.
That’s a cracking set of kits. Easily the match of any set that Spurs had during the Hummel years. Very nice work!