#10 - England 1980-83 Home Shirt by Admiral

There's no written rule that says football shirts have to reflect the fashion trends of the era in which they're born, and yet many do. Think of the football shirts of the 1960's: basic, functional, unshowy... Until Twiggy started wearing spangly mini-skirts, the word 'flair' hadn't even been invented.

Then when the 1970's arrived, colour flooded into everything from TV programmes to home décor as creativity and imagination underpinned art, architecture, clothing and much more besides.

And after that, the 1980's came along, where fashions became... well... 'sensible.' But you know what? By the early 1980's, we all needed a bit of sensible. It was time to take stock of what had gone before and forge ahead with understated design that was modern and sleek without being ostentatious.

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This was the very essence of how England's 1982 World Cup shirt came to be. Thanks to Admiral Sportswear, the England team had moved from basic unambiguity to tentative boldness with their 1974 kit, but six years down the track, it was time embrace a new decade. Out went the old-fashioned stripes down the sleeves and in came silky polyester, a continental-style collar and bold shoulder panels.

#11 - Wales 1976-79 Home Shirt by Admiral

It's time once again for us to welcome a guest writer into the 50GFSE fold, namely Simon Shakeshaft - Welsh football fan and an esteemed authority on the many and varied shirts worn by the national team. Here he is to discuss a classic vision in red, gold and green...

On this countdown the ‘template’ word has already appeared on a number of occasions. This Admiral shirt design is another one of those, a template. No disrespect to Eintracht Frankfurt, Dundee, Saudi Arabia, Vancouver Whitecaps or even Coventry City who actually had it first (even in their infamous shade of russet), but this is probably the most recognisable.

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The FAW joined the pioneering shirt designer’s revolution in 1976, just as the replica shirt market started to really take off, donning the same iconic Admiral ‘tramlines’ design until the end of the decade.

#18 - Aberdeen 1976-79 Home Shirt by Admiral

You know, the more I study football kit history the more I appreciate just how big and far-reaching the effects of the Admiral mid-70's kit revolution were. The kit they produced for Aberdeen back then, worn just as the club were beginning a golden era under the managerial reign of a certain Alex Ferguson, is a fine example.

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Prior to 1976, The Dons had enjoyed a succession of relatively plain and simple red kits. Nothing wrong with that of course, but Admiral’s bold approach, born from a need to produce copyrightable designs that could be subsequently sold as replicas and inspired by the ever increasing role of colour TV in the football world, lifted the ordinary Aberdeen kit into something extraordinary.

#24 - Crystal Palace 1972-73 Home Shirt by Admiral

I spoke once to a Charlton supporter who at the end of a mocking of their arch-rivals Crystal Palace concluded with ‘and they don’t even know what their home colours are!’

I'm not one to get involved with such club rivalry but I did think he had a point. Palace have changed their entire strip and colour scheme several times in the past 50 years with some, such as the Charlton fan mentioned earlier, considering this a hindrance... or at the least an identity crisis. One benefit of this colour indecision is that there has been a rich variety of different Palace kits over the years.

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Fans under 20 probably only know the club in red and blue stripes. Chaps of my age (40+) still have it in our heads that they play in white with a red and blue sash but if you’re any older, then its various combinations of claret and light blue that you will most associate with the Eagles - or as they were nicknamed in those days, The Glaziers.

#29 - West Ham United 1976-80 Home Shirt by Admiral

Somebody call Admiral. No, not the car insurance company. Somebody call the legendary football kit manufacturers of the same name. They're needed back in modern football where they used to be... BADLY.

Actually, they're needed back in modern football with all of the ingenuity, creativity and boldness they possessed back in the 1970's. Is that too much to ask? It's just that today's football kits often have an air of bland conformity, designed with one thing in mind - to offend as few people as possible. At least that's my view.

Admiral knew the time was right to shake British football out of its design coma four decades ago. What it brought to the table was a reinvention of the way football teams looked out on the pitch and the way fans looked away from the match.

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One miraculous example was the kit they provided for West Ham United at the start of the 1976-77 season, and the shirt that provided the most eye-catching element of it. In short, it featured chevrons; four thin claret-coloured v-shaped lines on a v-shaped light blue yolk covering the upper body. There's little anecdotal evidence as to the effect this new shirt created 39 years ago, but by all estimations, it must have been huge.