Great one-offs – Celtic, 1988

• The excellent book The Celtic Jersey by Paul John Dykes and The Celtic Wiki provided us with information

Celtic have often had plain white or plain green shirts as back-up options, but by the mid-1980s, yellow had become the first-choice second choice, as it were.

That was the case for 1986-87, with the shirt featuring a nice diamond shadow pattern and green and white incorporated as trim colours. It was sufficient to solve any clashes that arose, meaning that their third kit wasn’t called into competitive action.

It was similar to the Leeds kits of the time and was quite pleasing on the eye. What made it all the more impressive was that it was based on a design by 13-year-old Simon Weir, who sent his idea to Celtic and they in turn passed it on to Umbro.

Nowadays, such a kit would be worn against Aberdeen or Hearts or Dundee and probably sell well, as well as provoking a hostile reaction for needless changing, but this strip wasn’t used at all in 1986-87 or 1987-88.

In fact, its only outing was in a friendly on Celtic’s tour of Switzerland in July 1988, a 6-2 win against SR Delemont. With it being Celtic’s fourth game in five days, it’s quite possible that their other two kits were being laundered, hence why this long-sleeved set was called into use.

Whatever the reason, it was a unique occasion and matchworn examples are quite rare.