Brighton & Hove Albion Best Ever Home Shirt: The Nominations
Following hot on the heels of our tournament to crown Brighton’s Worst Ever Performance, our next social media vote to pass the time while football is in coronavirus lockdown is an altogether more positive one – to find Brighton & Hove Albion’s Best Ever Home Shirt.
We’ve been blessed with some pretty cool home shirts over the past 50 years, or at least until Nike replaced Errea as kit supplier in 2014.
There are 16 candidates who will do battle for the crown of Brighton’s Best Ever Home Shirt. They will be randomly split into four groups of four.
Voting will then take place on Facebook and Twitter, the scores for each shirt across the two platforms will be pooled together and the top two from each group will progress to the knockout stages. The selection process will begin on Monday morning at 10am and should last for 12 days.
In date order, here are the nominations:
An underrated classic from back in the 1960s, Brighton have re-released this jersey on a number of occasions – which could make it a dark horse in our competition to find the Albion’s best ever home kit.
Several variations of the blue body with white sleeves number were used between 1964 and 1970. Some featured the coat of arms of Brighton and Hove while others had B&HAFC in place of any badge. This shirt was worn when Brighton won the Division Four title in 1965.
In the same summer that Brian Clough walked out on Brighton for The Leeds United, the Albion decided it would be a good time to move to an all-white home shirt. This wasn’t the first time that Brighton had sported a white kit – four years earlier, manager Freddie Goodwin had instigated the same change shortly before he left for Birmingham City.
Neither of those break from the club’s traditional colours of blue and white went down well with supporters and both white kits lasted just one season each. Whisper it quietly, but we actually quite like it.
The Bukta shirt worn between 1977 and 1980 was fantastic for a number of reasons. Firstly, the seagull pattern on the sleeve. Why no kit maker has replicated it at any point in the intervening 40 years is an absolute mystery. The white sleeves themselves are pretty cool, the three blue stripes are the perfect fit and it was the first shirt to feature an actual Brighton badge.
Being a promotion winning shirt of course helps too. Peter Ward, Brian Horton, Mark Lawrenson and co tore through the divisions to reach the top flight for the first time in Brighton history wearing this particular shirt – and they did it looking bloody fantastic.
We’d give up a bollock to have Adidas making Brighton kits again. Every single shirt that the German manufacturer produced during their six seasons was a thing of beauty, starting with the first all-blue number used in Division One between 1980 and 1983.
This shirt is most synonymous of course with the 1983 FA Cup run. It was worn for the 4-0 win over Manchester City in round four. Jimmy Case was sporting it when he scored his famous thunderbolt at Liverpool as the Albion became the first side to win a cup tie at Anfield for nine years. And it was there as Brighton made their first appearance under the twin towers of Wembley.
Adidas’ second entry comes with the home shirt worn between 1985 and 1987. There were actually two versions of this kit; the first sponsored by Phoenix Brewery and the second by NOBO. The Albion were relegated in the NOBO version, so we’ve chosen the Phoenix Brewery number to enter our Brighton & Hove Albion Best Home Shirt Tournament.
There’s a strong argument that this was the best shirt that Adidas made during their brief association with the Seagulls. All blue with white horizontal stripes on the sleeves, it’s certainly one of the most popular with supporters who often name it their favourite ever. There was a red version worn away from home which was arguably even better – as we’ll no doubt find out when we get around to running a Brighton’s Best Away Shirt tournament.
Spall took over from Adidas as Brighton’s kit supplier in 1987 and they delivered just one home shirt, worn across two seasons which started with the 1987-88 Division Three promotion campaign. Blue and white stripes returned after a seven year absence as Garry Nelson became only the fourth Albion striker to hit over 30 goals in a single season after Ward, Arthur Attwood and Frank Scott.
For the 1988-89 season, the NOBO logo was changed to red so that it stood out more on the shirt. Brighton shirts had rarely featured the colour before that and it would go onto be used with increasing regularity over the coming years.
The Albion began producing their own kits in 1989 under the Sports Express banner and this home shirt was the result. A throwback to the 1978-79 promotion kit in some ways, it featured blue and white stripes with white sleeves. There was a Brighton badge on each sleeve and again the NOBO sponsor was in red, giving it the appearance of a Tesco carrier bag.
Despite the fact it made the Albion’s players look like they’d just finished their weekly shop, it nearly followed in the last striped kit’s footsteps by almost delivering top flight football – Brighton reached the Division Two play off final in the 1990-91 season wearing it.
Not exactly a classic shirt in its own right, the 1991-1993 home shirt is looked back on through misty eyes because of the wonderful decision to incorporate blue and white striped shorts with it.
No other club has attempted such a fashion statement since, which is very disappointing. That’s probably because this was a kit that was met with much mockery at the time for looking like a deckchair. As the sands of time have passed, people have grown to appreciate how ludicrous it was – which could make it a dark horse for the title of Brighton & Hove Albion’s Best Ever Home Shirt.
During the nominations stage, somebody wrote on Twitter, “Only Brighton could find a market for re-releasing the shirt from the worst season we’ve ever had and branding it a classic.” Which absolutely sums up the Admiral home kit worn for the final years at the Goldstone.
This shirt is synonymous with Steve Gritt, Stuart Storer and Robert Reinelt. Nobody has ever answered the question as to why the background of the badge was turned red, nor why it had popper buttons at the collar. All that we know is that it was beautiful.
Speaking of beautiful, we’re now into the Errea era. The Italian manufacturer spent 14 years making Brighton kits and they delivered some of the best shirts that we’ve ever seen – none more so than their opening effort as the Albion returned to Withdean in 1999.
It was clean, it was simple and it was stunning. The main reason that the first Skint kit is so popular was that it was effortlessly cool. Everything about it was perfect and although we obviously don’t want to influence who wins this best home shirt tournament, if it isn’t this one then it will be a crime.
Never one to miss out on an opportunity to cash in by bringing out a new shirt to mark a special occasion, Dick Knight introduced the Centenary Kit in January 2001 to mark the Albion’s 100th birthday.
It was another Skint classic, blue and white stripes with the club’s badge replaced with the crests of Brighton and Hove in homage to the shirts of the 1960s. The Albion wore this kit as they won the Division Three title and then followed that up a year later by winning Division Two.
A strange nomination this one, the 2006-2008 home shirt was worn through two pretty unmemorable campaigns under the management of Dean Wilkins. It was the bluest kit that Brighton had sported since the Adidas numbers of the 1980s, featuring blue sleeves and an entirely blue back.
The newly designed Skint logo looked pretty nifty however and it’s a shirt that we always associate with Bas Savage moonwalking around after scoring a typically flukey goal. It deserves bonus points for that alone.
Brighton brought out a special one-season shirt to mark the last campaign played at Withdean and again, it was a hark back to the 1980s by being mainly blue with only a few thin white stripes. This was a kit that was good enough to become a classic in its own right, but the design was only part of the reason behind its popularity.
The other was that the football Brighton played while wearing it was from another planet. Nobody could live with Gus Poyet and his side in 2010-11 as they won the League One title with four games to spare. It was one of the most enjoyable seasons that we’ve ever had as Albion fans and it’s doubtful we’ll ever see a Brighton side dominate a division in the same manner ever again. Perfect.
Having produced a beautiful shirt for the Albion’s return to Brighton 12 years earlier, Errea duly delivered the goods again for the first season at the Amex with another astonishing effort to mark the Albion moving into their new home.
The classic blue and white stripes was joined by flashes of gold. It was an instant favourite even before Will Buckley wrote his name into Brighton folklore with that 96th minute winner against Doncaster Rovers. A decade on and this shirt remains head and shoulders above anything else worn at the Amex.
Errea signed off in style with this very underrated home shirt from Oscar Garcia’s sole season in charge. Largely white, it featured just two thick blue stripes down the front and yellow trimming on the collar and sleeves.
The blue appeared to be lighter than is traditional, which also made for a nice touch without veering into the horrible world of the infamous Argentina home kit from a decade earlier.
It says much about how shit Nike’s kits have been that of the five efforts they’ve produced so far, only one received any nominations to feature in our tournament to crown Brighton and Hove Albion’s Best Ever Home Shirt.
That one is the current season’s effort. The darker blue stripes featuring a weird stripe pattern within and the blue sleeves have proven to be extremely popular, which makes it all the more disappointing that we’ve only seen the shirt worn in 14 league games at the Amex. Not exactly value for money when fans are being asked to fork out £60 to buy one.
Keep an eye on both our We Are Brighton Facebook page and our We Are Brighton Twitter feed to cast your votes for Brighton & Hove Albion’s Best Ever Home Kit.
1983 cup final shirt but with the sponsors name on it
The FA Cup final shirt was never worn in the top division, the 1980_83 shirt was plain blue with white collar. They changed the kit just for the final and continued to wear it for the following season in the 2nd division
FA Cup Final shirt
1983 cup final shirt
Lovely shirt this seasons is close