My First Football Shirt: Jack Lang

As any long-term football shirt fan will likely know, the first shirt you ever pick-up will come as part of a full kit. While it might be a faux-pas now, we'll allow a pass for under-12s. Jack Lang, our latest chat, was one of the recipients of a full kit, as he received a Manchester United kit from 1996.

We caught up with Jack, a writer for The Athletic, to talk about ageing Manchester United shirts, France World Cup shirts and Ronaldinho scoring optical illusions for Barcelona.  

What was your first football shirt?

I was given the full Manchester United 1996/97 home strip for my birthday as a kid. The shirt hasn’t aged very well… the ‘Theatre of Dreams’ text right in the middle at the bottom seems especially odd.  Plus, there was a button on the collar that used to dig into your skin when you controlled the ball with your chest.  Not ideal.

Shop Manchester United vintage shirts.

What is your favourite football shirt?

 I’ve got a huge soft spot for France's kit at the 1998 World Cup, but I think they actually perfected the formula a year or two later with this number. The bold red line is still there but there’s a lot less clutter on the front with those white lines removed. The collar is done well, too, which I think is where loads of football shirts fall down.

What is your favourite goal?

Ronaldinho for Barcelona against Chelsea. Not because it’s especially beautiful, but because it actually took a replay or two to work out what he’d done. It was almost an optical illusion of a goal… and it’s no wonder Carlo Cudicini couldn’t save it if TV audiences could barely understand it.