My First Football Shirt: Cenk Unal

This month, designer Cenk Ünal is a man in focus. 

We’re really excited to be working with Cenk for our Residency series, and though we’re less than a quarter of the way through his designs, the results have already been incredible.

Alongside Cenk’s concept kits, we’re keen to find out a little bit more about what he loves about shirts. As is custom at the Football Shirt Collective, we decided to ask him about his favourite football shirt, alongside a couple of other things. Not only did Cenk highlight his first and favourite shirts, he also brought to light an interesting design feature about 90s Beşiktaş shirts...

What was your first football shirt? 

Jamal Sellami

(1998-2001)#JamalSellami #Besiktas pic.twitter.com/GlWywxkDxf

— Random Besiktas Players (@BesiktasRandom) September 7, 2018

My first shirt was the striped home kit of the Beşiktaş from 98/99 season.

If my memory serves me well my father gave it to me when I was 8 years old and this is one of my all-time favourites.

What is your favourite football shirt? 

I'm a huge fan of black shirts and I would call myself lucky since I'm a Beşiktaş fan. Throughout our history, this (2014/15 away shirt) is the first black shirt with only red details and definitely at the top of my list. In my opinion, we should use red more on black shirts.

What is your favourite football moment?

UEFA Avrupa Ligi 2. Tur 2. Maçı Sonucu
Beşiktaş:5 - Liverpool:4 (Penaltılarla)
Normal Süre (1-0) pic.twitter.com/8F49G0TIK7

— Beşiktaş JK (@Besiktas) February 26, 2015

It was Europa League game in 2015, we were playing against Liverpool and I was at the stadium. We lost the first game 1-0 at Anfield and after that the atmosphere was very tense in İstanbul.

We scored in the 72th minute and the game went to overtime then penalties. It was probably the most thrilling moment of my life, I couldn't even watch Lovren's penalty.

He missed and we eliminated Liverpool, no words could ever describe the happiness I felt at that time. I will never forget that game.

Thanks to Cenk for enlightening us on 90s Beşiktaş shirts!

Want to see a series of amazing concept kits? Cenk has already been creating designs which you can see here.

He’ll be back this week and the next two weeks for more too, so be sure to stay tuned to our Twitter for the latest.