Football strips are a uniform, a designation, a tribal outfit. They bestow upon the wearer, both player and fan, a sense of identity and pride or at least they should do. Unfortunately, strips don't always hit the target, and on occasion designers have shocked the public with some innovative yet outrageous designs, including Athletic Bilbaos Ketchup Stain shirt of 2004, and the much-criticised basketball vests of the 2002 Cameroon National Team. In England though, we think that we have a higher expectation of quality; a sense that for our money and loyalty we will be rewarded with merchandise to match the worlds premier footballing nation. Well think again. Many English league clubs have been equally guilty of peddling hilariously awful strips at top prices and what follows is a selection of the worst kits ever to grace the football fields of England. Not all of these kits are chosen due to their appearance, many of these have had such a negative influence on the sport in England and further afield, that they cannot be ignored despite the desperate desire to do just that. Shameless commercialism, botched rebranding or just poor business planning, the following strips represent not only bad fashion sense, but what many would say is wrong with football today. So please continue and revel in the retina-burning memories of days thankfully past.
15. Coventry City: Away 1992-93
Coventry were a stalwart Premier League club in the nineties, and just like so many of the top clubs of the era, they were not adverse to promoting a supposedly innovative but truly awful kit. This haphazard design, produced by Ribero was not the most unattractive of kits of the period, but proved unpopular and sold few. In the early years of the Premier League, when money was becoming involved in all aspects of football, it was very much a dog-eat-dog environment for kit manufacturers, and there were many around back then, including Ribero, founded only a few years beforehand. A small UK based designer who clearly felt the need to stand out from the crowd, and this was the result.
