8. Stoke City Away 1992/93
This ‘tie-dye’ effort from Stoke is certainly interesting and eye-catching, but in reality this shirt is far too busy.
The gold lettering is practically unreadable.
This shirt is very busy and frankly staring at it for too long enduces headaches. Maybe that was Stoke’s plan all along…
7. Fiorentina Away 1992/93
The infamous ‘Swastika’ kit from Serie A. An interesting geometric design in the famous purple of Fiorentina turned very wrong as fans noticed the symbol of the Nazi party hiding on the shoulders.
The discovery of these taboo symbols forced the club to withdraw the strip from use midway through the season, opting for a plain white one instead.
6. Coventry City 1981/82
In 1974, Jimmy Hill became director of football at Coventry City. He turned Highfield Road into the country’s first all-seater stadium, backing the plans with the slogan ‘You can’t be a hooligan sitting down’. This backfired as fans ripped up the new seats to use as missiles. Another extravagant plan was to merge Coventry with local car manufacturers, Talbot, and change the club’s name to ‘Coventry Talbots’.
The plans were instantly dismissed, but one aspect of the idea came to surface when the 1981 home kit was released. The kit is based solely on the Talbot company. This kit was bold, brash and ultimatley illegal as clubs were banned from showing sponsors until 1983. TV companies refused to show the Sky Blues playing in the blatantly sponsored kit and the club had to opt for a plainer strip when the cameras were rolling.
5. Athletic Bilbao 2004/05
This strange design has been compared to a whole host of strange things. The 3D blobs have been described as ketchup splatters, lava lamp, a model of a lung and as blood splatters.
Incredibly the latter is spot on! To commemorate the clubs centenary, Bilbao enlisted a local artist, Dario Urzay to design this kit.
This eye popping design was actually designed to evoke blood splatters having been inspired by the pieces in the Bilbao Guggenheim Museum! The kit was only ever worn briefly during the clubs UEFA Cup campaign.
4. Stockport County Away 1993/94
This kit ticks every single box when it comes to being a bad design. The kit was worn during Stockport’s time in the English football league. 1993/94 saw The Hatters reach the Play-Offs only to be denied promotion by Burnley in the Wembley final.
Incomprehensibly complicated hoops? Check. Zig-zag lines in red and blue? Yep. Practically (or rather impractically) invisible sponsor? Definitely.
If I saw something like this on my TV, I’d have it replaced…
3. Shrewsbury Town Home 1992/93
Described as appalling, dreadful and ludicrous this kit looks like it would be at home of an infants’ art class. Strangely, each kit is totally unique. The fabric was cut from larger bolts of cloth meaning the design on each shirt is different. The kit was worn by prolific goalscorer, Carl Griffiths, who was joint top scorer with 27 goals. Despite this, Shrewsbury finished 9th in the Third Division last season.
2. Wolverhampton Wanderers 1992/93
Perhaps the black marks represent tyre marks to correspond with the ‘Goodyear’ sponsorship?
Or more likely designed by a very drunk man or a West Bromich Albion fan… Or indeed both.
This garish design mixes the traditional orange with something that looks like the result of a car accident, complete with blood stains. Classy….
1. Hull City 1992/93
Let’s be honest, there’s nothing much that beats ‘The Tigers’ when it comes to awesome nicknames. Tigers are impressive and majestic beasts and this was probably on the mind of the ambitious designers of this striking kit. Unfortunatley, rather than taking the intimidating qualities of a Tiger, this product ended up looking really tacky. Certainly memorable though!
So there we have it. Obviously there a hundreds of other I could have picked (Coventry’s chocolate brown number or Norwich’s bird poo kit) for example.
What is your least favourite kit? Is it better or worse than Liverpool’s?
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No, the 3rd kit is even worse!
As far as the team play with there heart for liverpool , the kit does not matter .Not many players can do it ,
Its really close between those Liverpool and Peterborough away tops, nah the Liverpool kit win the prize, Peterborough’s monstrosity was 20 years ago when just about every club kits were crimes against fashion, so their can be no excuses from Liverpool this time around for not learning from those old mistakes.