You know how sometimes you start doing something completely pointless, but then it turns into this massive, soul-sucking project? Yeah, that’s exactly how this World Cup kit ranking mess kicked off. I’d just got off the phone with my mate, Dave, the big Arsenal supporter. We were having a proper shouting match—not about clubs, for once, but about the 1998 England shirt.
I was cleaning out the storage room, trying to make space because my wife has decided we need a ‘yoga nook’ or some rubbish, and I stumbled on a box. A proper dusty box, taped up since I moved house, maybe ten years ago. It was full of old football gear—scarves, tickets, and buried right at the bottom, my old 1990 Italia replica, the grandad collar one. That thing is magic. Pure, unadulterated, glorious football nostalgia. I texted Dave a photo.
Dave calls me immediately, like a bloody psychopath. “That thing’s rubbish,” he says. “It looks like a grandad’s pyjamas. The 1998 one, the dark blue beauty, that’s the gold standard.”
Well, I couldn’t let that stand. Not a chance. I’ve known Dave for twenty-five years; if I let him win this argument, he’d bring it up every single time we watched a match. So, right there, surrounded by old Christmas decorations and broken lamps, I decided I was going to prove him wrong, scientifically. I needed to establish, once and for all, the definitive, indisputable, Top 5 England World Cup Kits.
The Initial Scramble: Digging Up The Past
The first thing I did was ditch the cleaning. Yoga nook could wait. I hauled the old laptop onto the dusty workbench and started going through every single World Cup kit England has worn since the 1950s. I wasn’t going to rely on memory; I needed the visual proof. My initial process was simple: I opened about thirty different browser tabs, all with images of kits, most of them grainy or taken from weird angles on auction sites. It was a digital archaeological dig.
I spent maybe three hours just accumulating the data. I messaged three other mates—Pete, Chris, and my brother, Steve—making them send me photos of the ones I knew they owned. Steve, the nutter, even had the 2010 one, which is an immediate disqualifier for me, but he insisted it was “minimalist.” It wasn’t minimalist; it was boring.
I started a spreadsheet, like a proper idiot. The columns were simple:
- Year/Tournament: Easy enough.
- The Kit: Home or Away (because the away ones are often better).
- The ‘Gazza Factor’: How good did Gazza look in it, or the player who captured the spirit of that tournament?
- The ‘Did We Win Anything?’ Factor: This was zero weight, I decided. If the kit is good, it’s good, regardless of the penalty shootout heartbreak.
- The ‘Feel’ Rating (1-10): The most important column.
Setting the (Arbitrary) Rules for the Ranking
Trying to make a ranking like this objective is a fool’s errand, so I didn’t even try. I locked myself in and came up with three non-negotiable rules for the ‘Feel’ Rating. This is where I started eliminating the chaff.
Rule 1: No Collarless Shirts. A proper football shirt needs a collar, even if it’s just a weird V-neck. The modern ones, the simple crew-necks, look like practice jerseys. Out they went. That meant the 2002 kit, which was nice but too simple, got binned straight away. Same for the miserable 2014 ones. Good riddance.
Rule 2: It Must Be Distinct. If it looks like a clean white t-shirt and you can’t immediately tell the year, it’s out. The best kits tell a story. They have that little bit of flair, that detail that screams “this era.” The 1990 blue lightning bolt? Distinct. The early 2000s white/red numbers? Distinct.
Rule 3: The Badge Must Be The Star. Some of the late 90s/early 2000s kits had the badge in the middle, or the manufacturer logo was massive, or the numbers were massive. The focus should be on the Three Lions crest. If the whole thing feels like an advert for the kit maker, it’s not making the cut.
The Grind: Eliminating the Duds and Finalizing the Top 5
This was the proper battle. I started with about fifteen finalists and had to cut ten of them. It was brutal. I spent a good forty minutes staring at the 1986 home shirt versus the 1970 away shirt. The 1970 one had the cool blue piping, but the 1986 one had the classic, understated diamond pattern. I messaged Dave again—the whole reason I started this!—just to wind him up. I told him his 1998 favourite was hanging on by a thread.
I used the “Gazza Factor” to settle most of the ties. The 1990 shirt easily won its era because of the stories associated with it. The 1998 away shirt, which Dave loves, just scraped in because I realised Scholes looked proper hard in it during that Argentina game.
The last one to get cut, which nearly caused me to throw the laptop across the room, was the 2006 home kit. It was good, minimal, but the gold trim just felt wrong. It looked a bit too corporate, a bit too clean. That’s what disqualified it. I needed something rougher.
I finally closed the spreadsheet. The mess was over. I had my list. I called Dave back just to read him the final, irrefutable rankings. He, of course, disagreed entirely, but that wasn’t the point. I had the official, practiced, documented proof of my opinion. The argument continues, but my data is solid.
So, after all that nonsense, and neglecting the cleaning for an entire afternoon, here is the official, final verdict. This is the truth, whether Dave likes it or not.
The Top 5 Iconic Kits (My Official Practice Record)
These are the kits that made the final cut, based entirely on ‘The Feel’ Rating and the rules I made up on the spot.
- Number 5: The 1998 Away. (The dark blue one). It’s Dave’s favourite, and I hate to admit it, but it’s a proper striking colour. Strong lines.
- Number 4: The 1982 Home. The plain white with the thin blue and red piping on the sleeves and collar. Classic, no fuss, beautiful collar.
- Number 3: The 1970 Away. The light blue collar, the proper old-school felt badge. It’s got history all over it.
- Number 2: The 1996/1998 Home (Close Enough). The official World Cup shirt was similar to the Euro 96 one, with the slightly shiny material and the perfect navy collar. Pure early football gold.
- Number 1: The 1990 Home. The grandad collar, the faint watermark diamond pattern. The colour is slightly off-white, which just adds to the charm. The kit of tears, glory, and pure nostalgia. Undisputed best ever.
And that’s the end of my practice. The garage is still a mess, the yoga nook is still a dream, but my integrity in the face of Dave’s terrible fashion sense is intact. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to find something else to obsessively rank and cause an unnecessary argument about.