England 1990 Black-Out Retro Football shirt
Thatcher’s dark shadow was cast over England in the Eighties. A bleak and desolate country. The Specials serenaded the decade with the haunting anthem, ‘Ghost Town’, to a backdrop of inner-city decay and industrial decline. The working class were conflicted between the sceptre of mass unemployment and the gratification of council house ownership. The North-South divide was a machete wound. The Soviet Empire aimed ICBM missiles at London. Babylon was burning.
Football attendances were at an all-time low, hooliganism blighted the terraces and the boardrooms asset-stripped the balance sheets. Stadia crumbled from the lack of investment and the finest talent was exported.
Never mind the revolution. Football was not even televised in 1985.
The England 1990 Black-Out shirt acknowledges the subculture of football supporters, the hope and humility, the dedication and sacrifice. It is testimony to their resilience. This is a uniquely interpreted version of the cult England 1990 third shirt. This is the shirt of an alternative English football culture. A shirt of conscientious objection. This is a shirt of remembrance and respect. A shirt that proudly embraces all of England’s colours, classes and creeds. This is football shirt poetry. This is Shelley’s ‘Mask of Anarchy’. It is Dizzee’s ‘Wot U Gonna Do’.
England 1990 World Cup Finals Squad:
1. Peter Shilton (Derby County), 2. Gary Stevens (Rangers), 3. Stuart Pearce (Nottingham Forest), 4. Neil Webb (Manchester United), 5. Des Walker (Nottingham Forest), 6. Terry Butcher (Rangers), 7. Bryan Robson (Manchester United), 8. Chris Waddle (Marseille), 9. Peter Beardsley (Liverpool), 10. Gary Lineker (Tottenham Hotspur), 11. John Barnes (Liverpool), 12. Paul Parker (Queens Park Rangers), 13. Chris Woods (Rangers), 14. Mark Wright (Derby County), 15. Tony Dorigo (Chelsea), 16. Steve McMahon (Liverpool), 17. David Platt (Aston Villa), 18. Steve Hodge (Nottingham Forest), 19. Paul Gascoigne (Tottenham Hotspur), 20. Trevor Steven (Rangers), 21. Steve Bull (Wolverhampton Wanderers), 22. Dave Beasant (Chelsea)
© Score Draw
