Proust-Ian Rush

By Simon Treanor

Nostalgia’s a funny thing, isn’t it?

There’s a regressive side to it that shouldn’t be ignored, particularly as it’s currently being weaponised for all the worst reasons. But it’s also a fairly natural part of being human, and there’s a benign side to it too. The reason for it is clear: most people miss being younger, having less weight on their shoulders (and elsewhere), and nothing quite recaptures the joy of experiencing things for the first time.

Football is, of course, particularly ripe for this –  while, with all nostalgia, we might have some fair points about the way the game has changed for the worse, the truth behind most of these feelings is the fact that football will never be as exciting or joyful as it was when you were 12.

Most people’s favourite World Cup is the first they witnessed, and your favourite players are largely going to be those that played in your early years following the game.

Plus, with nostalgia being so driven by sense memory, the iconography around the game is always going to be a huge factor,  and the most obvious way this can manifest itself is through football kits.

Nostalgia is clearly a massive part of the rise of football kit culture in the past few years – the most high-profile name in the field is called Classic Football Shirts after all, and you’d struggle to find a team in the world that hasn’t had at least one recent kit inspired by an outfit from the past.

I’m at least as guilty of this as anyone. As a Liverpool fan, and an adidas devotee, I was naturally delighted by the three stripes’ return to Anfield this summer – it just feels right. And of course, nostalgia plays a large part here – as much as I like adidas’s designs, it is to some extent an emotional reaction, one that is undeniably influenced by the fact that they provided Liverpool’s kits during my formative footballing years.

But while that’s understandable, another side to this rush of nostalgia seems less natural. As well as wistfulness, nostalgia is usually driven by tradition, and by past glories.

So why do I, and others, feel it so strongly about a kit with neither association? Liverpool’s green third kit is the best of this season’s three for me, and while it is aesthetically nice, there’s an emotional response to it that is obviously connected to memories of my youth.

The colour green may have a semblance of tradition now, but it was considered a huge break from the norm when it was introduced, rumoured to be at the behest of Carlsberg, although it pre-dated their sponsorship by a year.

It lasted on away kits until the end of adidas’s first reign (which adds to its mystique for me), and has sporadically come back since, but it’s probably fourth on the list of away colours you’d associate with Liverpool, behind white, yellow, and its predecessor, grey.

And it was not successful. It really wasn’t successful. The two seasons with a solid green home shirt were the beginnings of Liverpool’s decline, where a long run of rarely being outside of the top two was broken by two consecutive sixth-placed finishes.

The squad was unsettled, good players were sold, mediocre players were brought in, and most relevantly of all, Liverpool’s away form dropped off a cliff. Liverpool won a total of three matches in solid green shirts from 1991-93, cup ties against Stoke and Crewe, both in the lower divisions, and a Premier League match against a Middlesbrough team that would be relegated in the league’s first season.

Not only that, the fact that the new kit this year debuted at Burnley meant that it reminded me of the absolute nadir of Souness’s reign. A trip to Villa Park early in the 1992-93 season saw Torben Piechnik make a dreadful debut, Ronny Rosenthal miss an open goal, and Dean Saunders – just sold to Villa – inspire the home team to a 4-2 win which flattered Liverpool.

And yet, that association sort of added to the warm feelings for reasons I can’t fully comprehend – and despite everything, I am fond of the 91-93 kits.

This isn’t unique to Liverpool either: when Arsenal recently paid tribute to their ‘bruised banana’ kit of the same era, it was enormously popular – and is a great kit – but the original was seen as garish at the time, and arguably its most notable use was in an FA Cup defeat against a Wrexham side who had just finished 91 places below the Gunners.

Likewise, Man City’s set of Kappa kits from the late 1990s are remembered fondly despite – or perhaps because of – their dropping down to the third tier (admittedly, the home kit is an all-time great).

It makes you wonder how far the power of nostalgia can go – if Derby get another adidas deal in future, will we see a 2007-08 tribute? Will Man United pay homage to the recent green and white striped away kit in a few years?

Comment below with examples of kits that you remember fondly despite their association with bad results.