Retro Football: When did the nineties become vintage?

In a week when a 16-year-old goalkeeper made his debut and nineties football shirts began being sold as ‘retro’, Laura Jones asks when did her era of football become vintage? Last weekend, Rochdale goalkeeper Jonathan Musangu made his senior debut against Chesterfield. There’s nothing unusual about debutants at the beginning of the season, but usually they don’t make me feel quite so old. Musangu is 16 years old. He was born a month after I started university in 1997.

It seemed to cap off a week of being told that the nineties were becoming ‘retro’. On Kirstie Allsop’s ‘Hunt for things in bins’ programme on C4, a girl called Fallulah (or something equally as ridiculous) was asked by the interior designer how she would like her bedroom decorated. Her reply was that she wanted it vintage: “You know, like, nineties vintage.”

It was at this point I realised that I have football shirts – and probably knickers – that are older than both of these teenagers. The first football shirt I owned was a 1991 Sheffield Wednesday away kit. Every image I have of that shirt is Roland Nilsson in a sickly yellow shirt with the tiniest pale blue shorts. It was the season after The Owls were promoted to the First Division and they held the title of League Cup winners (the Rumbelows Cup, as it was then.)

There appears to be a rule of thumb that ‘antique’ describes something over 100 years old and ‘vintage’ is over 50. Retro can, however, be any era that has passed or be described as ‘of its time’.

In 1991/92 when I bought my first football shirt, Sheffield Wednesday came third in the First Division and qualified for Europe. Leeds United won the league – a painful reminder of what might have been if Eric Cantona had played more than an exhibition match for the Owls and not gone on to sign for the West Yorkshire lot up the M1.

This was also the final season before the Premier League became the dominant force in English football.

I think it’s undeniable that this era has more than just passed when you consider the state of both Yorkshire clubs. Signings like Eric Cantona are just a distant memory.

Both the 91-92 home and away Sheffield Wednesday shirts are now being sold in the club shop under ‘retro shirts’, so in an attempt to embrace the age I bought the home shirt to go with my original away shirt.

The advantages of this new ‘retro’ shirt are that it’s not older than Jonathan Musangu and it fits. The disadvantage is that I now have to accept that the era where I fell in love football is mainly just on VHS.

Are retro strips fashionable or simply the latest development in football merchandising? Do you have a favourite retro kit?

Read more from Laura Jones here!

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