"Yet, for more than a hundred years, most football kits failed to stoke the imagination at all. Even for a professional club it was practicality over pomp. Predominantly kits were kept to a single colour - two if you were feeling bold, three if you were feeling like a maverick. Stripes, hooped and halved were as adventurous as designs got."
"In times gone by, each season a club would buy a set of shirts and they'd likely be worn for the entirety of the campaign - home and away. But as David Moor, author and editor of the Historical Kits website, explains, all that changed after a chance encounter between then Leeds United manager Don Revie and Bert Patrick, founder of Admiral sportswear company."
""Up until then, Leeds just wore white shirts," says Moor. "As a fan you could go into any sports shop anywhere in the country and buy a plain white shirt with their logo on it. "There was nothing to differentiate that one from one sold by another store. Patrick's idea was to redesign and copyright the kit so nobody could steal it, nobody else could manufacture it."
For over a century football kits prioritized practicality and simple, single-colour designs with occasional stripes, hoops or halves. Clubs typically purchased one set per season and wore it for all matches. That model changed after a partnership between Leeds United and Admiral introduced a copyrighted, distinctive away shirt and regular kit variations. Kits became branded, sold to fans at a premium, and clubs received payments to wear specific designs. The shift transformed shirts into fashion items and commercial products, fueling a market for retro replicas and increasing fan engagement with historical and iconic designs.
Read at www.bbc.com
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