- Thanks to Barry Rojack for providing us with this
Everton are about to leave Umbro for Hummel, but, given that they have had four stints in the double-diamonds since the 1970s, you get the feeling that a return is never too far away.
Having begun watching football in 1990-91, Everton in Umbro is the natural fit in my eyes, all the more so with yellow change kits. The colour returned in the summer of 1996 after the club had had salmon and navy and then white, grey and black.
The design was certainly of its time, while the home strip, in the second of its two years, was notable for the prominence of black, especially in the hooped socks. However, it had capital if for no other reason than the fact it was worn in the 1995 FA Cup final win, albeit with the logo of outgoing sponsors NEC.
One thing to note is at the bottom of page 5. In 1995, Everton had entered into an alliance with Irish side Home Farm, who renamed themselves Home Farm Everton and switched from wearing blue and white hoops to Everton shirts featuring the two clubs’ crests and ‘Everton’ on the front. This shirt was available to buy, albeit for £8 more than the actual Everton shirt.
I had this catalogue along with both jerseys, it is a high point in Everton kits IMO.
The home was great, the fabric was bespoke with the NSNO banner woven in along with some other parts of the crest. But I want to talk about the away kit, which is my favourite shirt of all time.
This change shirt is about 24 years old now but it is as good as new. Why? Because the badge is embroidered but every other part is in the design of the fabric – there is no screen printing at all.
The sponsor, the UMBRO word mark and the sponsor DANKA are part of the design, the wordmark of the club is emboidered in along with a small wording at the bottom that normally you can’t see when it is tucked in.
This caused issues of course the following season when the sponsor changed from DANKA to One 2 One as they made a sticker to put over the sponsor and then continued selling the shirts at full price even though if you turned it inside out you could still see where it said DANKA…
Too many shirts use screen printing that often doesn’t last. The home shirt had DANKA screen printed on because originally the shirt went on sale in the summer of 1995 without a sponsor after NEC left. The home shirts the players worn actually had DANKA printed on in a fluffy felt material but the replicas were not given this treatment.
Anyway fond memories of this era, thanks!