Fantasy Kit Friday – Scotland in adidas, 1996 and 1998

Today, a what-if involving a team’s current equipment supplier, courtesy of Rab Gemmell:

MoJ, could I request a 'what if Scotland were made by Adidas at Euro 96 and France 98' please? Cheers

— Rab Gemmell (@rjgemmell5) May 8, 2020

Of course, Scotland have been with adidas for the past decade. As our resident Scotsman Without Portfolio, Jay Mansfield, puts it:

I can’t imagine Scotland in Adidas back then and can’t not imagine them in Adidas now.

Apart from what you’ll see below, we can imagine Scotland in adidas as their schoolboys’ international team – and England’s – had adidas in the mid-1990s.

Rab’s request is a bit later than that, though, and in any case we don’t to just be blatantly copying something. That’s why we’ve avoided France home designs from the period requested, as well as the Yugoslavia strip from the 1998 World Cup.

That leaves us with this for 1996, based on the France, Germany and Turkey away style at the European Championship – the first version we had seen was the Ghana home at that spring’s African Nations Cup.

Of course, in real life, Scotland had their famous tartan kit at the tournament in England but we have used a traditional – though perhaps not as prevalent through history as one might think – colour-scheme.

At the time of writing, the 1998 World Cup remains Scotland’s most recent experience of a major finals.

The new Umbro strip launched for that tournament included darker navy accents on the shirt and we have incorporated that as panelling on the design worn by Spain (and later Benfica, Crystal Palace and Cork City).

Where Spain had the ‘FEF’ logo under the neck, we have gone with the Gothic ‘SFA’ as Umbro often used.

Feedback is always welcome, along with requests for future FKFs – comment below or tweet us @museumofjerseys.