1998 – Pyro On The Pitch

It’s been far too long since our last Retro Shirt Review, as the previous edition was an exclusive article for the pages of Shelbourne FC fanzine Reds Inc. and focused mainly on Shels’ lesser known shirts of the late 70s to early 90s. Now we return to our usual formula with a close up look at a vintage jersey from our own collection, and a piece of fabric that was definitely worth the wait (plus, stick around for the bonus International Selection at the end).

Club: N/A
Year: Early 1980s
Make: Le Coq Sportif
Sponsor: Brousse-Cardell
Number: 13
Similarly Worn By: ?

Sweet baby Jahova, will you look at what what we have here. A strong contender in the “best thing we own” category, this sleek, long-sleeved, double pin-striped(!) LCS effort from the early 80s can be perfectly described with one word: *insert one of several superlatives here*:

The shiny white material is perfectly complemented by the blue collar and cuffs, with the former a rather thick wrap-around style. As usual, we have no idea what club this is, but from the make and sponsor it is safe to say that this is the shirt of a French amateur team.

The sponsor in question is French firm Brousse-Cardell (brousse=bush), which as far as we can tell were (are?) an import company. Both their wordmark and the manufacturer’s logo are of dark blue felt:

Going closer we get a better look at the glorious and lovingly created double pin-stripes, individually stitched on to the shirt, which are a lighter blue than both the collar’n’cuffs and corporate logos. Speaking of which, the Le Coq Sportif logo is perhaps the most interesting thing on the shirt, as it is our main clue as to when the jersey is from:

Like with Adidas’s logos, there have been several iterations of the trademark triangle-cockerel over the years, corresponding to different eras. Since the 70s this often saw the cockerel standing “on front” of the triangle, or sometimes within while touching the sides, and usually a Le Coq Sportif wordmark was underneath.

As you can see above, none of this applies to our shirt as a more minimal design was preferred, used by LCS back in the 60s. With the shirt material and pin-stripes suggesting an 80s shirt anyway, the closest we can find in terms of the logo is on Argentina’s 1980-82 model so we’re going to haphazardly guess that what we’re looking at is from around then (or maybe a couple years after to account for the style).

Unfortunately the inner label has faded and is completely blank, eliminating it as a possible source of information. But on the back we have one last feature in the number, which employs thin, blue felt stripes of it’s own to beautifully form a 13:

Really outstanding stuff all around. A classy crest applied to the front would be the only thing we can think of that could improve things, although we are now well used to crestless-shirts in this series given the nature of who they were used by.

With this gem from “The Sporting Cock”, we have continued our streak of highlighting a different shirt manufacturer in every installment of Retro Shirt Reviews to date. This will change for the coming episodes, but with a whole lot of old-school Adidas awesomeness on the horizon you won’t mind too much.

International Selection:

Country: Republic of Ireland
H/A: Home
Year: 1998–99
Make: Umbro

Back in Retro Shirt Reviews #5 we checked out not one but two white Republic of Ireland away shirts from 1994, that featured a whole lot of green and orange. A few years later and the Irish had mostly abandoned orange, save for their crest, with navy introduced instead.

This began with an interesting and unique jersey debuted at home to Croatia in the first game of Euro 2000 qualifying in September 1998. Below we have the replica version featuring an Opel sponsor, as all Ireland supporter shirts had done since the 80s – a delightfully capitalistic practice we are surprised hasn’t spread to other countries (click here for our look at when sponsors were a semi-regular sight in international matches themselves):

The shirt is noteworthy as the first Irish jersey to feature a central crest since 1985. The main body consists of a sort of shadow-stripe system, where one of the alternating stripes is made of two dark green borders and a “mesh” of diagonal dark green squares within. Interesting to note is that the stripes on the right side align with those on the sleeve while those on the other side do not.

The mesh is also used in the large sublimated rendering of the FAI logo that dominates the shirt, sitting over the stripes, with the half of another crest in the left corner overlaying it in turn. The navy element is confined to the trim on the collar turn-over and it’s lower section, which is unfortunately missing the original button, while single white hoops toward the end of either sleeve complete the look.

Inside the collar the words “VAPA TECH” are repeated over and over – Umbro’s name for their futuristic fabric technique of the late 90s. The label on the lower left side of the shirts says “Only Ireland”, reflecting Umbro’s “Only Football” tag line of the time, but accurate here as this certainly is a bespoke design.

The back of the shirt, if nothing else, provides a nice look a the stripes without the gigantic badge:

While not exactly considered an all time-classic, the shirt has grown on us to the point that we consider it a respectable entry in the pantheon of Irish shirts. Certainly better than most of what was to come over the 2000s and the future crest we like to call the “modern marketing abomination“.

***

Eintracht Braunschweig (of course also known as Braunschweiger Turn- und Sportverein Eintracht von 1895 e.V.) are a club that have been tangentially mentioned here already through Retro Shirt Reviews #1, so it is truly a glorious occasion that they can now take pride of place as the featured side in this edition of Pyro On The Pitch.

The scene was February 1998 and the heroically unglamorous Regionalliga Nord, part of the third tier of German football at the time. Eventual league winners VfL Osnabrück played host to their biggest rivals for dominance, the aforementioned Eintracht Braunschweig.

Background:

Statistically, Eintracht were the best supported team in the Regionalliga Nord for six of the first eight seasons since the league began in 1994. For most of it’s existence, the club had been Bundesliga regulars with a national title win in 66/67, but a decline in the mid-80’s would see them bounce between the 2nd and 3rd tiers for the next couple of decades.


Eintracht Braunschweig supporters celebrating in 1967

While the Regionalliga Nord featured many smaller clubs and some B-teams, such as Hamburger SV II and Werder Bremen II, Braunschweig’s major rivals Hannover 96 were also present. As for Osnabrück, they too possessed one of the bigger support basses in the league, despite having never reached the top tier of German football. And so, combined with the fight for the league title, Eintracht’s visit to their Stadion an der Bremer Brücke was always going to be a big occasion.

The Match:

We join the action in the 89th minute with Osnabrück leading 1-0. Perhaps in an attempt at one last passionate push to motivate their players to pull a goal back, or more likely in a display of joyous abandon in the face of inevitable defeat (aka “fuck it”), the Braunschweig ultras have decided that it’s pyro show time:

You can’t blame them really as it would have been a waste to have come all that way with all that pyro and not use it just because the team hadn’t performed. A fabulous red glare can been seen in the sections of the ground close to the Eintracht end:

Some great banners are also on show such as the above “Braunschweig ‘Family'” and “Cor Leonis” (“Lion Hart” in Latin):

As Eintracht prepare for a free kick we can see that at least one flare has already been launched pitchward, of course amidst much booing and whistling from the home supporters. An as of now unidentified man casually tosses one off to the side (a flare that is, to the side of the pitch):

The classic 20th century football sound of police dogs barking can be heard as police keep a watchful eye on Eintracht supporters perched high atop the perimeter fence.

Yes, I know it appears as if the man above is delivering a politically alarming salute. But don’t fret, through the power of gif we can see that he is actually in the midst of giving a friendly wave and maybe a misguided attempted at a “cool” hand gesture:

Nice man. If you thought we were done with pyro on the actual pitch here, you’ll be happy to hear that you are very wrong. As the game enters injury time and Eintracht attack again, we can see that a flare has now been launched into a very prominent position on pitch. A fine effort, but perhaps not ideal for the players to have to deal with as they attempt to find their way through the Osnabrück defence:

As we showed back in Pyro On The Pitch #5, a little bit of intensely burning flame on the playing surface wasn’t really a big deal back in the day. Here, the referee shows tremendous discretion as he at first appears to go to blow his whistle upon sight of the flare, but realising that the supporters cerebral placing of the flare is merely an extra-dimensional part of the game, he allows play to go on:

Sure enough the flare burns out with seconds as play goes on around it, proving the referee right for not holding play up. The ref probably had experience with such instances in the past and was more than likely able to identify the brand of flare and it’s specific characteristics from quite a distance away. Similarly the players must be commended for not being phased in the slightest, although as mentioned it really wasn’t that big a deal to these real 20th century pros, and it only goes to show the decline of the game that I would even feel the need to commend them for playing around such a natural element.

So Osnabrück don’t feel too left out, I will mention there is a nice terrace running all along the side of the pitch. The sight of people standing in a side-stand like this I’m sure is even more foreign to modern eyes than than standing in the ends: