There was an excellent response to the recent poll to find the best Arsenal home shirt from the era since they first accepted shirt sponsorship.
Nearly 1,400 people voted and for that we are very grateful. In reverse order, the top three kits encompassed three-decade timespan.
Third was the outgoing 2019-20 strip, which signed off with the excellent FA Cup semi-final win over Manchester City last weekend. It received 9.4 percent of the votes and just edged out its ancestor, the 1986-88 home – perhaps a case of recency bias being at play.
In second was another adidas offering, the 1990-92 kit worn as George Graham’s side won the league title in 1991, losing just once.
An evolution of the two previous homes, it signalled a move into the design increases of the 1990s without being in your face.
And the winner might surprise, given Arsenal’s association with white-sleeved red shirts: the 2005-06 redcurrant ‘Highbury farewell’. It took victory by the narrowest of margins.
It wouldn’t have been our personal choice – not least because the choice of redcurrant was a mistake emanating from a false recolouring of a picture from 1913 – but it was the only Arsenal shirt included in the Football Attic’s 50 Greatest Football Shirts Ever poll from 2015.
It’s worth noting that the five Arsenal home kits made by Puma were all in the bottom six spots, only taking 1.3 percent between them.
The 2018-19 kit didn’t receive a single vote.
The full results are as follows:
1. 2005-06 10.4
2. 1990-92 10.3
3. 2019-20 9.4
4. 1986-88 7.3
5. 1992-94 6.7
5. 2002.02 6.7
7. 1981-82 6.1
8. 1996-98 5.2
9. 1994-96 4.8
10. 2010-11 4.7
11. 2000-02 4.0
12. 1988-89 3.7
13. 1998-99 3.1
14. 2012-14 2.7
15. 2004-05 2.3
16. 1982.83 2.2
17. 2020-21 1.9
18. 2011-12 1.8
19. 1999-2000 1.5
19. 2006-08 1.5
21. 1984-86 1.4
22. 2008-10 0.8
23. 2017-18 0.5
24. 2016-17 0.4
25. 1983-84 0.3
26. 2014-15 0.2
26. 2015-16 0.2
28. 2018-19 0.0
