Today’s request comes from friend of the site, David Breach.
While he is an expert on all things Southampton and has been of huge help with previous articles focusing on the club, today’s piece looks at another team in red and white, one which used a design later adopted by the Saints.
So associated are Denmark with Hummel that it’s easy to forget that, for just over a decade, they carried the three stripes of adidas rather than the famous chevrons. David wished to see what things might have been like if Denmark had had adidas even earlier:
Like many of my age, I loved the Danish side of the 1980s and early 1990s. Their Hummel kits were part of their attraction, and I’m still obsessed by the brand today. However, what if there was no Hummel and they went with another German company [Hummel were originally established in Germany but are now based in Denmark] during that time. Obviously, adidas created some fairly regulation templated kits, but they did also have some crackers. So, is there any chance of seeing how Denmark would’ve looked at any of the three tournaments I remember them most for?
The three competitions that David refers to are the 1984 European Championship, 1986 World Cup 1992 European Championship, which of course they won after being included as late replacements for Yugoslavia.
Denmark’s actual Euro 84 kits were covered here not so long ago and had contrasting sleeves, but David’s request was to see them in the designs used by the victorious France team.
Denmark’s 1986 shirts – a design later given to Southampton by Hummel – were absolute classics. The home version was ranked as the fourth-best of all-time by the Football Attic in 2015 while the mix-and-match options were seen to good effect in Mexico, with a different combination worn for each of their four games.
In terms of coming up with an adidas alternative, David again looked to France:
Denmark did make it to Euro 88 but a disappointing performance looked to hastened the end of their spell as a big player on the world stage for the moment. However, they made the most of their second chance in Sweden in 1992, winning the competition wearing Hummel kits that perhaps had one or two too many design elements.
To scale things back, David suggested the Germany design, featuring three bars on each sleeve. Of course, keeping the contrasting sleeves that were present on the real thing would have just resulted in an Arsenal (or Norway) shirt, so the decision was to taken to stick with red sleeves on the home. Similarly, the red neck and cuffs on the away differentiate from the real Norway version.
Feedback is welcome, along with future requests – comment below or tweet @museumofjerseys.
