'QPR: Hoops Through History' Review
For any football kit enthusiast, it must be a dream come true to have an entire book by John Devlin devoted solely to your favourite team. If that applies to you, and you support Queens Park Rangers, that day has arrived.
Quite simply, no one can present an illustrated history of football kits better than John Devlin. He understands the way shirts are made and possesses the comprehensive knowledge of someone that's observed the evolution of their design intently across several decades. His work as an illustrator and author, made manifest in his three True Colours books, is ample proof of his abilities, and for the first time he applies them here to the kits of just one team. Let us all rejoice.
It's worth saying up front that you don't need to be a QPR fan to appreciate this book. If you admire the work of anyone that puts in the effort to do all the research for a project like this, let alone illustrate all of the kits and write the words, you're in for a treat. Presented within these pages is a review not just of what QPR wore, but who wore it, when and to what effect across well over a century.
The book begins with Rangers (Christchurch Rangers, specifically) as a newly formed team in 1882. A Victorian-era black-and-white photograph shows a group of players looking smart, proud and dignified, but it's John's coloured graphics that bring Rangers' first kit to life. Collared long-sleeved shirts in the blue of both Oxford and Cambridge universities show what the photograph can't — a vibrancy and sense of identity that feed into the complete history of the team.
As our journey through time continues, we discover Queens Park Rangers in green-and-white stripes and hoops, then blue shirts and finally blue-and-white hoops in 1926. All the while, we're treated to reports about QPR's fortunes on the pitch supplemented with newspaper cuttings, old cigarette card images and photographs to create an authentic sense of between-the-wars realism.
Some lovely stories emerge along the way. My favourite concerns the introduction of a new blue shirt with white sleeves that was intended to replace the blue and white hoops in 1948, but wasn't popular with the fans. Which design to adopt, moving forward? Well that was settled by having both kit designs put on display at the QPR ground for a reserve match at which the crowd were asked to cheer for the one they liked best. In these days of formalised fan consultation, one can't help but feel that they did things better in the old days.
Further gems such as this are wonderfully scattered throughout the book. All the while, John Devlin (ably assisted by club historian Chris Guy) regularly makes a point of bringing a wealth of key details to our attention; a collar style here, a change in the width of the hoops there — even the use of kit seemingly abandoned several years previous. No matter is too insignificant and every tiny grain of knowledge gained throughout by Devlin is passed on willingly to the reader with a simple sense of personal pleasure.
Subsequent periods in QPR's history bring today's normalities gradually into focus. We see the arrival of v-neck shirts in the 1950s, long-sleeved crew-necked shirts in the 1960s and the commercialism of the 1970s and 80s. All the while, we're kept in touch with on-the-pitch news of the day, from promotions and relegations to trophy wins and key victories.
Yet it's the kit illustrations that provide the common thread running through the book, all of them beautiful in their accurate detail and style. For completists everywhere, nothing has been spared as we get to see every possible kit along with training tops, goalkeeper shirts, badges, sponsor logos, shirt number fonts and just about anything else you can think of.
By the time you reach the end of the book and its assessment of QPR kits by the likes of Nike and Errea, you know you've learned a lot about the west London club. You'll also feel that you've learned a lot about football kit design, too, and that's only possible after reading something so lovingly put together by people that care for the subject matter.
A compelling mix of design analysis, cultural commentary, and footballing chronicle, QPR: Hoops Through History may be John Devlin's finest work — a book to be cherished by fans of both Queens Park Rangers and football kit design alike.
'QPR: Hoops Through History' by John Devlin with Chris Guy is available via shop.qpr.co.uk for £24.99.