Cathal McGrath got in touch by email, with a request that immediately struck a chord.
He wrote: “Like many fellow Irishmen, I’m an Aston Villa fan but, while many became Villans when the club had McGrath, Staunton, Houghton and Townsend in the 1990s, I’m of an older vintage and glory-hunted on the back of the 1981 league win and subsequent European Cup.
“Villa had Le Coq at the time of course and ended the 1980s in Hummel but in between they wore Henson and I’m convinced that there’s a link between that and the nosedive in fortunes that led to the relegation of 1987.
“I always liked Oxford’s kits of that time so can we right this historical wrong and see how Villa versions would have looked?”
Stints with Umbro bookended the Le Coq Sportif and Hummel years of course and so there is a vague familiarity with these, helped too by the Mita Copiers sponsorship.
Colour-wise, they design themselves, with interchangeability baked in.
There’s always an argument that success or failure on the field comes down to the qualities of the players wearing the kits rather than the garments themselves, but surely these outfits would have inspired Villa to greater achievements than what actually materialised?
Feedback is welcome, as always, along with requests for future FKFs – comment below or tweet @museumofjerseys.
It should have been the law that every team with a three-colour palette in 1985-87 wore Umbro, because they had so many great templates at the time with three colours baked in – there’s this one, the Watford split band, the Leeds diagonal shoulder stripes, and I’m going to add England’s World Cup 86 walkout jacket to that list even though it never appeared on playing kit!