England face Australia in a friendly at Wembley on Friday night, so we decided to delve into the archives.
2003 – England 1 Australia 3
Aka the one where Francis Jeffers scored.
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The then-Arsenal man was one of 11 players brought on by Sven-Göran Eriksson at half-time – it’s believed that this game was influential in Fifa applying a six-sub limit for friendlies.
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This game at Upton Park was the sixth and last appearance for the England change kit introduced for the previous year’s World Cup but it was hardly necessary – Australia, soon to move to Nike, had a predominantly green primary strip.
1991 – Australia 0 England 1
England had a four-game tour of Australasia in June of 1991 and wore all-white in two of them, against Australia and Malaysia.
The default home kit was used in one game against New Zealand while the home shorts were paired with the away shirts and socks in the other match against the All Whites.
It was quite literally a clash of styles as Australia’s Kingroo shirt could not be accused of subtlety.
1980 – Australia 1 England 2
This one was notable for the numbers rather than the kits, even if it was a classic Umbro v Admiral match-up.
While it was a one-off game, England used squad numbers and, what’s more, they were similar to the Italy/France block-numbering system – the players arranged by position and then alphabetically within each sub-group.
