The Not-So-Beautiful Game?

Public Proclaim Ireland to have the Worst European Football Shirt Ever!

After three weeks of voting, the 1995-6 Ireland goalkeeping jersey has been selected by the public as the worst European national football shirt of all time. Registering 23.8% of the vote in the survey held by scotts Menswear, the purple, yellow, orange and green monstrosity comfortably topped the poll of over 500 voters.

In an interesting trend, two more goalkeeping jerseys joined the Irish offering to round out the top three. In second place was Peter Schmeichel’s 1992 European Championship-winning jersey. The Danish multi-coloured polka dot design picked up 18.8% of the vote, while Bodo Illgner’s 1990 German goalkeeping jersey took third with 15.8% of the vote.

Scotts’ survey asked football fans across the nation to vote for what they considered to be the worst national European shirts of all time, presenting the questionnaire in the form of a knockout tournament to reflect Euro 2012, which was being decided alongside it.

The winning shirt, worn during the culmination of Jack Charlton’s illustrious career as Irish national team manager, was made by kit supplier Umbro. The jersey contains two shades of purple alongside orange and yellow Irish Football Association logos emblazoned across random positions; there is even a flash or two of traditional Irish green for good measure.

David Gorman, Marketing Manager from scotts Menswear, said: “While there have been plenty of questionable-looking European football shirts, the 1995-6 Irish goalkeeper jersey was clearly the public’s least favourite. With a striking colour scheme and somewhat dull design, I’m not surprised the shirt was prominent in the final reckoning. The interesting thing for me was that three goalkeeper jerseys filled the top three spots; I don’t know whether there’s an aversion to keepers in general, but it seems like a team’s last line of defence doesn’t always need to look good!”

While the scotts Menswear survey is now complete, the company is keen to continue the discussion via their social networking outlets.  David Gorman continued: “While the public have voted on our own least favourite eight shirts for the poll, we’re under no illusion that the years have provided many other contenders. If you find a shirt even more despairing than the ones we’ve picked and you believe it to be a worthy rival to our winner, upload a picture of the shirt to the scotts Facebook page and we’ll see what the public think.  It doesn’t have to be a European national shirt – we’re keen to see how our nominated worst shirt stacks up against every shirt ever made!”