Football Shirt Culture.com

Here's another Hall of Shame made by Maire Ofeire.

This week’s number 10 is the Atletico Madrid Nike shirt from 2004. Now sponsored by Kia Motors, between 2003-2005 the Spanish giants bore the name of movie company, Columbia.

Except they didn’t really! Instead of the name “Columbia” various films were instead put on the shirts including XXX, Hellboy and Resident Evil 2.

Most famously the design of the kit was changed to promote Spiderman 2 which was contrary to UEFA rules as the design was too big.

The official colour of this kit is “graphite and orange”. Despite wearing this for two years, the London club still managed to entice some big names to the team including Ruud Gullit who made his debut in this ensemble.

6. England Goalkeeper 1996 Umbro

During the European Championships in 1996, held in England, David Seaman had little choice but to wear this shirt. Ian Wright referred to Seaman as “looking like a packet of refreshers”.

5. Norwich 1993  

This Norwich kit from the 1990s has been known by many names, all too rude to print.  

4. Coventry City 1970s 

The team are known as the Sky Blues hence they are known for their blue jerseys. However, in the 1970s they tried something a little different and went for an all-brown affair.

3. Athletic Bilbao 2001 

The Basque team are an extremely proud, independent side. To mark the club’s centenary year, local artist Dario Urzay created this design inspired by the club’s traditional red and white and pictures from the Guggenheim Bilbao Museum. The result was this splatter blood affect which the team wore during their short UEFA Cup campign.

2. Manchester United 1995-1996 Umbro 

Perhaps one of the world’s most infamous kits. This two-tone grey affair proved to be the most controversial of all Manchester United ever brought out. Losing 3-0 to Southampton, the players complained at half-time that they could not see each other and so the kit was consigned to the dustbin. They still lost the game 3-1.

1.Cameroon 2004 Puma

The National Football Team of Cameroon appeared at the 2004 African Cup of Nations in a newly designed one-piece playing kit (the Cameroon UniQT). The top of the kit is skin-tight. The kit design features ‘lion claw tears” (left) on each side along the oblique muscles, referring to Cameroon’s nickname of the ‘Indomitable Lions.’ Cameroon were warned not to wear the singlet in the African Nations knock-out phases but went ahead anyway. As a result, FIFA's fashion police deducted six points from the Lions' World Cup qualifying campaign and that was the end of that. The deduction was later withdrawn.