GLF 37: Shirts

As usual, there are more questions than answers. However, surely our natural curiosity dictates that we should at least try to imagine some theoretical possibilities to answer these Paxmanesque questions? Indeed, despite the fact that we should really know about such matters (well, it is part of football culture), it would initially appear that the oral history links have failed us on this particular occasion. Thus it is especially important that we attempt to shore up this 'missing link' in our football mythology, by considering some possible origins for football shirt swapping - he said in that craggy, Crampseyesque voice of his.

As mentioned above, I feel that this absorbing topic is an essential part of football folklore. Consequently, the opening section of this article will explore the issue of shirt-swapping in a quasi-historical context. Originally, I was going to take the Tebbit/Thatcher approach to historical analysis, by blaming the "swinging 60s" for the emergence of all things that 'one' doesn't like. However, simply thrusting an accusatory finger at the "Pandora's penalty box" of the 1960s and alleging that this is when, where and why football shirt-swapping (plus most of the other 'ills' currently afflicting 'society') all stemmed from, is just too simplistic a premise for basing a rational argument on.

 

Still, it's easy to understand why certain people adopt this narrow-minded approach to history. For are the 60s not the decade when footballers had long hair, and the practice of outrageous canoodling after scoring a goal replaced the stiff-lipped, homophobic, manly handshake, and the slightly more exotic pat on the back? And nor should we forget that in 'the swinging sixties', people would get their kit off under the flimsiest pretext, but especially so if that magical phrase, 'for artistic reasons', was mentioned. Mind you, I suppose the gradual 'evolution' from Pathe News to the individual's very own 'window on the world', meant that football was now reaching a wider audience in the 60s, and, inevitably, this meant that footballers (just like the rest of us) were/are slowly being brainwashed by all the messages that the TV transmits to its mesmerised prisoners:

eg Did you see yon Pele swapping shirts wi' Bobby Moore

in Mexico on the box last night? Pure, dead brilliant, wasn't it?

Eh think eh'll gie that a bash up at Brechin next Tuesday evening, like.

In short, I feel that we must dig a bit deeper than the 1960s for our answer.

Jiving back into the 1950s, perhaps the brightest innovation in the world of football during the rock'n'roll years was Gabriel Hanot's imaginative proposal to have the European clubs play each other in various competitions. And it seems fair to presume that one of the likely consequences of the start of these tournaments, was that shirt swapping began to gain currency among the players as a means of poaching impressive (and perhaps valuable?) mementoes from these historic occasions. Or it could be that this is presuming too much, and, instead, maybe we should be considering possibilities from areas other than just Europe?

Broadening our horizons, then, the problem with identifying the 1950s as the era when shirt-swapping really took off is that it lazily assumes that exchanging football shirts is originally a European tradition, rather than considering the possibility that it started off somewhere else. Consequently, it is perhaps an opportune moment to remind ourselves that the first World Cup took place in Uruguay in 1930, and that shirt-swapping might well have started at this inaugural tournament. Whatever, this Uruguayan alternative reminds us to explore all possible avenues, rather than just confining ourselves to thinking about the European fitba' scene. Furthermore, it also highlights the possibility that shirt-swapping commenced when countries started playing meaningful [sic] internationals against one another, rather than just focusing on the European club competitions for our hypothetical answers.

 

Crossing 'the pond' back to Europe, although the following interpretation might sound rather bolshie, perhaps one possible explanation for the emergence of shirt-swapping is the exploitative manner in which club owners in Britain treated their footballing serfs prior to the abolition of the maximum wage, back in 1961. (This is assuming, of course, that European footballers were similarly constricted by a maximum wage restriction?). Let me explain.

 

Since the various European tournaments kicked off in season 1955-56 (6 years before Jimmy Hill et al succeeded in abolishing the maximum wage), perhaps the top players in Britain felt that the parsimonious club owners were not exactly short of a few bob. So whilst the owners might not yet be ready to pay their employees a fair wage, there was no harm in forcing them to buy a new set of shirts several times each season. (This is sometimes euphemistically known as 'the moral victory'). Indeed, it could be argued that not only were the aggrieved players getting their hands on some rather tasty, and potentially lucrative, souvenirs (well, would you rather hold on to your own shirt after playing Real Madrid, or get your sweaty paws on De Stefano's jersey?); but, simultaneously, perhaps they were also highlighting the fact that the club owners would have the shirt off a player's back if they believed that they could get away with it.

 

Okay, so that's a rather politicised interpretation of events. Alternatively, it could just be that the players desired to have personal mementoes of these historic occasions, and that shirt-swapping (since the clubs probably held on to the pennants exchanged by the captains before the start of play with a view to padding out the old trophy-less room) seemed the logical way of solving this problem of how to poach a personal souvenir out of these early European club matches. (This desire for personal mementoes perhaps being mirrored by the fans with their scarf swapping.) Or maybe it was just a mixture of wanting a personal souvenir from these pioneering matches, whilst, at the same time, giving the ancient, 2-fingered salute to the club's penny-pinching owners?

 

Whilst the Calvinist side of me regards the 1950s as being the decade when shirt-swapping started to flourish (at least in a European context, anyway), the Romantic in me likes to believe that it was the "no-man's-land" game of football on Christmas Day, 1914, which firmly established the tradition of exchanging gifts at football matches. For if the rippling 'Chinese Whispers' of oral history are to be believed, as well as playing each other in what must have been the most amazingly surreal game of football ever to have occurred, tokens of goodwill were also exchanged between the opposing 'soldiers'. I still wonder who it was (British high command? German high command? Or both of them 'simultaneously'?) that took the callous decision to end this impromptu, jaiket goalposts kickaboot, by ordering the artillery to commence firing; thus causing the 'players' to sprint back to their respective trenches?...

 

Developing this theme, perhaps the swapping of football shirts is a modern echo (a friendly one, thankfully) of the capturing of the regimental colours that vainglorious generals previously attached great symbolic significance to? So I suppose that a footballist's collection of opponents' shirts could be (very) distantly compared to all these military 'scalps' that used to be collected by army officers. Then again, perhaps I shouldn't watch too much of "Sharpe's Eagle"?

 

Still in the international arena, such an established tradition of conformity has shirt-swapping now become, that the non-conformist act of refusing to swap jerseys (the entire team, that is, not just one contrary individual) is full of dramatic significance. During Euro 2000, for instance, the Yugoslav national side stated in advance that they would not be swapping shirts because their bomb-devastated country could ill afford such luxuries. Whatever the rights and wrongs of their stance, it was a powerful (though portentous) message.

 

On a less serious note, the obscure image of a hair-shirted Alf Ramsey frantically scurrying around the Wembley pitch whilst attempting to stop the English players swapping jerseys with their Argentinean counterparts, is one 1966 memory that you don't see on the box too often. Given Sir Alf's no-nonsense, unsentimental attitude when it came to dropping players, I still wonder if any of them ultimately succeeded in swapping shirts after that match? Or, conversely, whether both teams were hurriedly marched back to their respective changing rooms, without being permitted by the blazered authorities to exchange jerseys?

 

Sadly, because of the appalling way in which the 'game'(?!) has been shamelessly exploited these last 10 years, many fans now tend to regard shirt-swapping as something that global enterprises like 'Merchandise United' do every couple of weeks in order to fleece their long-suffering 'customers'. Ironically, it seems that football jerseys have now come to symbolise the predatory nature of money-mad clubs (witness the recent shirty behaviour - aka truthful observations - regarding replica football shirts as expectorated by a couple of Tyneside businessmen); rather than an emblem of sporting behaviour by fitba' ambassadors like Pele and Bobby Moore.

 

This disgust felt by many fans at the manner in the 'beautiful game' has regressed into 'the greedy game', is probably reflected in the growing market for the old-fashioned cotton shirts, among a certain generation of nostalgic 'Peter Pans'. Though untainted by the name of some ropy sponsor, paradoxically, these old-fashioned shirts (gradually re-entering the mainstream, suspiciously...) are still a manipulative marketing ploy in themselves - even if they are viewed as a symbol of more innocent times. Indeed, as a symptom of fitba's ongoing degeneration, the contempt that many fans now have for football shirts is a sad indication of how things have changed for the worse. Moreover, it is also sobering to see how a football club's cultural identity (i.e. jersey, crest, and colours) can be manipulated and distorted into nothing more than a run-of-the-mill, brand name commodity for the market-place.

 

In conclusion, it would appear that there are no straightforward answers to the probing questions posed at the beginning of this article. Indeed, the various possibilities mooted in an attempt to answer these questions should really be included under the heading of 'counter-factual history', since they are merely interpretations of how things might have been, rather than how things actually were.

 

And yet it doesn't have to be like this. For whilst the players from the halcyon age of football are now in their twilight years, they're still full of interesting tales and, as such, remain potentially rich seams of oral history for imaginative 'fans-with-laptops' like Hugh McIlvanney and Bob Crampsey. Then again, maybe it's best that we don't know everything that there is to be known about the game of fitba'? One has only to contemplate the likes of Motson, McNee, White, Donnelly, Davies, Hill, et al, to realise how utterly banal footballspeak can frequently be. For imagine how colourless life would be if we never used our imaginations when confronted with some unexplained, mythical tradition?...