Chris Nee casts aside the thirty years of hurt (and then some) as he remembers a cracking England home kit from the late 1990's...
"It's a little known fact that Three Lions, England's UEFA Euro '96 anthem by Baddiel, Skinner & The Lightning Seeds was knocked off the top of the charts by the Fugees' Killing Me Softly. Twice. After a brief and unfortunate intervention by what I can only assume was a truly awful Gary Barlow song, both were put in their place by Wannabe.
"The Spice Girls had arrived to grab the summer of 1996, fold it up into quarters and pop it into their back pocket. There's no denying that there was plenty to look at in their debut music video, but what it didn't have was the coolest England shirt ever. Three Lions 1-0 Wannabe.
"Both England kits at Euro '96 were stunners. The away was grey-on-grey, an unlikely combination that caught the zeitgeist of mid-90s England and was designed to look as good with pale stonewash jeans as it did on the pitch. Nice try, Umbro.
"The away kit would have become truly iconic had it remained unburdened by disappointment, which it emphatically did not. The home kit escaped the same fate, but then it was the real icon of the two in any case.
"It was the England shirt with everything. That top-to-bottom centred trio of Umbro word mark, England crest and shirt number. That unfussy white, pure right up the the end of the sleeves. That beautiful collar, wrapped over at the top of the chest and ready for the golf course around the neck.
"The navy and white of the collar were offset by the shirt's potent secret weapon. A second, brighter blue appeared around the edge of the collar and also formed the outline of the player's name and his number, front and back.
"With navy shorts and white socks both flashed with that same electric blue, England have never looked better. Never, that is, until David Beckham appeared in the same shirt on his England debut that September. Oof!"
My huge thanks to Chris for suggesting our first Iconic national team kit. Chris is something of a kit aficionado himself, being as he is the co-presenter of the wonderful Kit Club podcast. To hear his views on an eclectic selection of fabulous kits, classic or modern, make sure you download every episode from sphinxfootball.com/kit-club...
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