71 Football Kits

I’d been dropped from the Upbury Manor football team. Though I was still getting picked for the rugby team, God knows how. So, on a bright Saturday morning I met up with Paul, Clive and Stan for an under 12s rugby fixture at the newly relocated Gillingham Tech – a stroll in the sunshine for us Twydall boys, to Pump Lane. As usual we lost, the star of the show being Keith Larkins, a speedy kid we knew from Twydall Juniors.

Our interest in rugby ended on the final whistle as, on a nearby pitch, a football match between the schools’ senior sides was still in progress. Seeing Geoff Bray in action for us was the main attraction but the Tech had a rising star too, in Dick Tydeman. 

Football was our preferred game and these were the shirts of the day...

And these were our socks...

Non-sporty types thought nothing of trotting onto the sports’ pitches at Upbury in T shirts and ankle socks, but the aspiring footballers amongst us owned shirts and socks just like these. At a time when team kits were plain and simple, the interchanging of a second strip allowed us to play in the colours of half the teams in the league. The downside was every sock in every sports shop came with two white stripes… and Manchester United socks didn’t have white stripes.

Stripes on my socks weren’t the only thing I had to put up with. Mam must have found the only sports shop in Gillingham that stocked a red shirt that didn’t come with white cuffs and collar. The one she bought was red all over, a deep dark red. Like many a good son I smiled and said thank you, and tried to pretend I wasn’t choked to receive the wrong shirt in a size big enough to see me through to the fourth year.

A blue shirt with the white cuffs and collar – the shirt of Gillingham FC amongst others – was the shirt most commonly seen. My mate Clive Ward had one. And so did my mate Kevin, who impressed me when he sent off for a Chelsea badge from somewhere, that his mum sewed on his shirt. A blue cotton printed square, it was the first club badge I’d seen. Too bad he had white shorts instead of Chelsea blue, but Kev’s preference for high sided rugby boots suggested he wasn’t really committed to football. Rugby brought the inner gladiator out of Kev and other fatties, like Richard Pascall, and gave them a chance to shine. It also gave them the chance to avenge the humiliations they suffered on the football pitch. Bastards.