Materials Football shirts and kits used to be really heavy, as they were, originally, made of cotton and had collars that were usually buttoned. Nowadays sports kit's technology has advanced as well; shirts are made of nylon and polyester and they are very light and comfortable to wear. They tend to behave well in high temperatures allowing the skin and body to breathe. Most shirts today are collarless and without buttons. History and Facts The first recorded use of football team shirts lays back in 1928. The occasion was a classic match between Chelsea and Arsenal in England. Official football team shirts were used by both teams during the league games. IT was in 1939 that the Football Management Committee introduced the player numbering, as we know it today; despite the fact that the numbering changed throughout the years, due to the change in formation and in game systems, number 1 has always been the goalkeeper's number. It is in general hard to associate numbers with positions, although typically number 10 usually refers to the playmaker and middle field players.



During the World Cup Championship in 1954, teams were obliged to use the squad numbering system; new shirts were used and players should keep the same shirt number for the entire tournament. The squad numbering system somewhat reduced the importance of numbers, but the sales of the replica football team shirts of the World Cup Teams increased dramatically that year. In 1965 substitutions were introduced. The substitutes were obliged to have the numbers 12 and 14, while the substitute goalkeeper should use number 13.

It was in 1977 that football team shirts started to become really famous. They replaced the little trinkets and scarves that were once the only sport memorabilia and team representation items that were used. Brits were the first who started selling football team shirts massively and they soon realised that this was a real goldmine.

At the beginning football shirts had only the player's number; in 1993, during the Premier League Cup Final, teams presented, for the first time, players' names on the back of the shirt. In season 1993-'94 shirts had both names and numbers of players in Europe, while the Americans adopted the same system in 1994, during the World Cup Final tournament that took place in the States.

Since then the sales of football team shirts skyrocketed. Today all teams have sponsors and heavy contracts, so their shirts have the brand name or logo of their sponsor. There are some rules though, since some companies cannot be advertised on shirts, even if they are big sponsors; that applies mostly to tobacco companies, since football fans consider them to be irrelevant and unsuitable for the sport.