In football, the first advent of players wearing numbered shirts came on 25 August 1928, when Arsenal and Chelsea wore numbered shirts in their matches against The Wednesday (renamed Sheffield Wednesday soon after) and Swansea Town, respectively.
After a number of experiments with the system - which met with opposition on the basis that numbers on shirts would "spoil club colours", it was decided to make them a permanent feature. The eleven players starting a match would wear shirts numbered from one to eleven, and a player could find himself wearing a range of different numbers over the course of a season.
Although there were no hard and fast rules as to which number represented which position (especially given football's varied formations), a de facto standard emerged over time and was employed by most teams, with few exceptions:
Goalkeepers generally wore the number 1 shirt. This convention has become almost universal.
Defenders generally wore numbers between 2 and 6.
Midfielders most commonly wore numbers 4, 6, 7, 8, 10 and 11 (11 and 7 were typically used for the left and right wings, respectively).
Strikers wore 9 and 10, and less commonly 7, 8 and 11.
When substitutions were introduced to the game in the 1965, the substitute typically took the number 12; when a second substitute was allowed, they wore 14. Players were not compelled to wear the number 13 if they were superstitious.
The move to a fixed number being assigned to each player in a squad was initiated for the 1954 World Cup where each man in a country's 22-man squad wore a specific number for the duration of the tournament. As a result, the numbers 12 to 22 were assigned to different squad players, with no resemblance to their on-field positions. This meant that a team could start a match not necessarily fielding players wearing numbers one to eleven. Although the numbers one to eleven tended to be given to those players deemed to be the "first choice line-up", this was not always the case for a variety of reasons - a famous example was Johan Cruyff, who insisted on wearing the number 14 shirt.
Argentina defied conventions by numbering their squads for the 1978 and 1982 World Cups alphabetically, resulting in outfield players (not goalkeepers) wearing the number 1 shirt. More recently tournament regulations have stated number 1 must be issued to a goalkeeper.
The first European football association to introduce this squad numbering system for league football was England, which introduced squad numbers (and names printed above the numbers) for the 1993 English League Cup final between Arsenal and Sheffield wednesday. It became standard in the FA Premier League the following season, and most European top leagues adopted the system over the next five years. Players may now wear any number (as long as it is unique within their squad) between 1 and 99. In 2003, FC Porto goalkeeper Vitor Baia became the first player to wear 99 in the final of a major European competition.
Hicham Zerouali was allowed to wear the number 0 for Scottish Premier League club Aberdeen F.C. after the fans nicknamed him "Zero".
Players are not generally allowed to change their number during a season, although a player may end up with a new number if he changes clubs mid-season and his new club already has a player wearing the number he wore with his former club. Players may change numbers between seasons - a move from a high number to a number in the range one to eleven may be seen as an indication that the club thinks the player is likely to be a regular starter for the coming season.
The typical numbering given above comes from the days when the 2-3-5 formation was used. With the convention of numbering from the back forwards and from right to left across each line the numbering is:
1. Goalkeeeper 2. Right full back (right back) 3. Left full back (left back) 4. Right half back (right half) 5. Centre half back (centre half) 6. Left half back (left half) 7. Outside right (right winger) 8. Inside right 9. Centre Forward 10. Inside left 11. Outside left (left winger)
Early evolutions of formations involved moving specific positions, e.g. moving the centre half back to become a defender rather than a half back. Their numbers went with them, hence central defenders wearing number 5. You can still see the effects of this system in operation. For example, in friendly and championship qualifying matches England, when playing the 4-4-2 formation, general number their players (using the standard right to left system of listing football teams) 4 defenders - 2,5,6,3; 4 midfielders - 7,4,8,11; 2 forwards - 9,10. Similarly the Swedish national team number their players:
1. Goalkeeeper 2. Right back 3. Right centre back 4. Left cenre back 5. Left back 6. Defensive midfield 7. Right midfield 8. Centre midfield 9. Left midfield 10. Striker 11. Striker
Shirts of special significance
Over the years certain shirt numbers have developed a significance for a football club or national team. This is usually because it was the number of a particularly great player, and it is considered an honour to wear the same shirt that that player wore. (This is a different approach to the practice of retiring numbers ) A prominent example of this is the number 7 shirt at Manchester United, worn by George Best, Bryan Robson, Éric Cantona, David Beckham and, now, Cristiano Ronaldo.
Comments
WHO WORE THE FIRST NUMBER 99