European Championship 1-11s and unworn change kits – 1980

This series was mentioned in this article last week as being imminent but you know how things go – the discovery that Spain used to have a different coat of arms on their crest, one featuring an eagle, certainly threw preparations out of kilter.

Still, it’s here now and will hopefully progress quickly. In case you hadn’t read the other piece, there was a Twitter request for a look at change kits taken to the European Championship and not worn and it was one we were happy to look at – then we decided that simultaneously tracking instances of teams wearing 1-11 would give it another dimension.

We will take 1980, the first proper finals tournament, as the starting point and it’s a fertile opener as four of the eight competing countries were able to remain in their first-choice kits.

While Admiral had given England a brand-new, and somewhat controversial, home strip in the spring of 1980, the change kit – first used in 1976 – remained unchanged.

Its last outing before the European Championship was a game against Austria a year previously, but we can assume that it was taken to Italy given that it appeared in two more matches in 1981.

The eventual winners West Germany did wear two different shirts during their campaign – but the difference was in the manufacturer rather than the colour, despite the fact that makers’ logos were not allowed to be visible.

The likelihood is that the green version of their Erima shirts were on hand but not called upon. The switch to adidas for the final then became a permanent one.

While they were pushing ahead in terms of modernity, the hosts Italy looked like something of an anachronism, essentially still in the same style in which they had reached the World Cup final a decade before.

However, one notable difference was in terms of their alternative option.

Back in 1970, their white shirts had a blue stripe across the chest and were paired with navy shorts but by 1980 they had a simpler reserve kit – albeit one that was not required.

The last of the four, the aforementioned Spain, is where we do have some uncertainty.

We do know that they had a modern v-neck style for their primary kit and that they generally favoured blue as a back-up colour.

However, four years later, they would have to provide an all-white kit for Euro 84 as Uefa sought dark/light distinction where necessary – might that have also been the case in 1980?

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Just to be safe, we have mocked up both options, featuring the iconic flag-style sock turnovers.

That’s the kits that didn’t happen – what about the 1-11 selections that did?

In the four-team 1976 edition, three of the countries had 1-11 in their semi-finals but not necessarily for the final or third-place play-off – meaning that Johan Cruyff wore 9 rather than 14 for the Netherlands – but here there were more high numbers on show.

The one exception was England in their opening game against Belgium. What perhaps made this even more impressive was that in their previous match, against Australia, England had used a version similar to the France/Italy positional block-style, having also had squad numbers for the Home Championship prior to that.

What is unusual with the layout here is the defensive numbering. We presume Phil Thompson was the driver, given how he had enjoyed such success wearing 4 at centre-back for Liverpool, and Ray Wilkins, England’s goalscorer in the 1-1 draw with Belgium, had 6 as a result.

The only pity is that it was almost a double 1-11 clash – Belgium were missing just one, or 1, given that goalkeeper Théo Custers was absent. Jean-Marie Pfaff’s inclusion gave the a 2-12 instead.