England Football Online
Contact Us Page Last Updated 13 December 2022
 

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England's Uniforms

England's Tournament Uniform
World Cup

1984 Away Uniform
1986 Home Uniform
1986 Away Blue Uniform
1988 Away Uniform
 
 

Not worn in play

Description

 

Red short-sleeved shirt, with wide shadow stripes. Red v-neck, with three thin white stripes and two thin navy-blue stripes in middle. Red hem on sleeves. Thin white stripe along shoulder. Embroidered emblem on left breast, with 'FIFA WORLD CUP' and then 'MEXICO'86' (without a space between) centralised in capitalised white lettering underneath. Two embroidered white concentric diamonds on right breast, with 'umbro' in white lower-case lettering underneath. White numbers on back, in the old Umbro font last worn by England earlier in the year, against Israel.

White shorts, with white drawstring. Thin red stripe down seams, with a thin navy-blue stripe on each side. Red numbers on left thigh in the same font as on the back of the shirt (except that the number one was just a simple rectangular bar with no base or 'flick' at the top (right)), with two embroidered navy-blue concentric diamonds on left thigh, with 'umbro' in navy-blue lower-case lettering underneath. Embroidered emblem on right thigh.

Red socks. Solid white diamonds across tops, edged with two navy-blue hoops.

 

As per the modified white shirt, the red change shirt also underwent subtle changes in readiness for the Mexican climate at the 1986 World Cup. The shadow stripes were thicker and the striped cuffs were removed.

It was worn in the last warm-up match before the tournament, a 4-1 victory over the local side from Monterrey, England's base for the first round of games in Mexico, though the World Cup lettering was not present and there were no numbers on the shorts.

The red World Cup kit made no appearance at the tournament. England wore their white shirts in the first four matches. Then came the quarter-final against Argentina, against whom England often wore red in contrast to Argentina's pale-blue-and-white striped shirts. This time, however, Argentina wore their alternate solid blue shirts, and England donned their white shirts again, but over the pale-blue shorts and socks that were part of their second-choice tournament strip (all pale blue). Maradona's 'Hand of God' goal put paid to England, and they got no further chance to wear either their red or pale blue shirts.

Although this kit was never worn in an official match, it did make an appearance, two years later, on 4 June 1988, when England won 7-0 at Aylesbury United in a warm-up game for the European Championship Finals. On this occasion, the World Cup lettering was present, but again, the numbered shorts were not.

  • All of England's 1986 World Cup squad played against Monterrey, except Mark Hateley, Gary Lineker, Peter Reid, Bryan Robson and Trevor Steven. Chris Waddle was an unused substitute.
  • All of England's 1988 European Championship squad played against Aylesbury, except Tony Adams.
  • Viv Anderson, John Barnes, Peter Beardsley, Glenn Hoddle, Kenny Sansom, Gary Stevens and Chris Waddle, therefore, wore both variations of the shirt.

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CG/GI/PY/JB