HIDDEN GEMS: WALES’ ONE-OFF SHIRTS
Evan Powell
Over the years, we’ve been blessed with some simply gorgeous shirts. From Admiral’s iconic tramline design to the Italian renaissance of Lotto and Kappa during the late 90s and early 00s. But especially during the less-glamorous times of Welsh football, many shirts were worn once, often not even by the senior squad and not available to purchase as a fan. Here’s a pick of some of those:
Adidas “Third” 1984-86
Worn once during an U18 tie against The Netherlands, this beauty is a part of Simon ‘Shakey’ Shakeshaft’s fabulous collection of matchworn shirts and was displayed in St Fagans during the Celf Crys Cymru exhibition in 2019. Despite never being worn by the senior squad, remakes of this shirt are commonplace on a matchday now and just by having a look at it you can understand why.
Lotto Home 1999
A shirt worn only twice and never by the seniors, this is one of few photos of the rare Lotto template. The shirt graced Wrexham’s Racecourse Ground for a B team fixture in 1999, with us beating Northern Ireland 1-0. It’s design is a reverse of the yellow away shirt from the previous year that was worn by the seniors against Denmark.
Kappa Home 2000
Essentially a stopgap shirt worn twice by the senior squad in two 3-0 friendly defeats to Brazil at home and Portugal away, Kappa’s first Wales shirt was a stunner. The central badge could well be a call back to Admiral’s shirts of the late 1970s or the Umbro away worn during Bobby Gould’s disastrous reign during the mid-90s. Following Euro 2000 where Italy debuted Kappa’s Kombat 2000 shirt template, a new shirt was provided for our 2002 World Cup qualifiers.
Kappa “Third” 2007
Unlike the previous entry from Kappa, this shirt was available to purchase as a replica and is seen by many as one of the best to come from the skin-tight era of shirts. Designed as a one-off shirt to celebrate the 130th anniversary of international football at The Racecourse Ground, the likes of Craig Bellamy and Chris Gunter donned this shirt for a 2-2 draw against New Zealand in 2007 at the spiritual home of Welsh football.
Adidas “Third” 2017
After the FAW raised concerns to UEFA about a potential colour clash for our away tie against Moldova, Adidas quickly created an alternate strip only to be worn for this game. Ramsey and Robson-Kanu scored late on to secure a 2-0 win and we all hoped that we’d get an official release of a cracking shirt (we didn’t). A fair few ended up making their own with iron-on badges but all hope wasn’t lost when Classic Football Shirts put a few player issue shirts, shorts and socks on their site in 2020.