IT IS easy to be critical about some of the football shirts being created these days, but when you talk about socks, there is one underused element of hosiery the game should never discard – the hooped stocking.
There’s something a little jaunty about the hooped sock. It is more interesting than the plain version, more durable than a white sock and has the air of the cavalier about it. While we tend to salivate over a decent striped shirt (defined stripes, not trailing blood or Jackson Pollock type splashes), we often overlook the sock. In fact, going back in time, when books and directories used to list a club’s colours, it was “Blue shirts, White shorts”, rarely, if ever were the last pieces of the uniform referred to.
And yet, these socks would complement a striped or hooped shirt perfectly. Take, for example, Newcastle United’s socks from the mid-1970s, Supermac’s bandy legs encased in some very continental-looking hosiery. Did they not look better than black with white tops? And go back to the pioneering days of football and look at how the kit of the Royal Engineers, Queens Park and others displayed shorts and socks that mirrored each other.
But logistics played their part in the plethora of hooped jerseys of the late 19th century, quite simply the looms were often in short supply that could produce vertical stripes.
Arsenal toyed with hoops in the late 1960s, their classy red and white shirts were finished off with navy blue (thin) banded socks. They looked good, but why blue? And why were they dropped in favour of red socks? Their reintroduction was a throwback to the Chapman era.
One of the best designs has to be Barcelona’s socks in 1974, the red and blue hoops adorned by Johan Cruyff. You only need to glance at the images of Cruyff at that time to know this was a cosmopolitan team making full use of its visual identity. These glamorous creations probably did more than most to link hooped legwear to the continental club.
There is something a little “rugby” about a hooped sock, rather like the shirts that seem to be more prevalent in the oval-balled game. Horizontal stripes certainly make players look bigger, both their torsos and lower limbs. Hence, rugby may feel more comfortable wearing socks that are more “dandy”. Vertical stripes are more common in football, maybe to make the players seem fit, agile and a little aerodynamic. While rugby clubs were happy to retain the traditional jerseys that emphasised physique and power, football clubs probably wanted to differentiate themselves from the competing code.
There are some kits that could have done with a little styling. Wouldn’t Celtic and QPR’s hoops look better finished off with some matching socks? Or how about Brazil having some very vivid recolouring? But we don’t want everyone to have a hooped sock, otherwise their presence becomes “everyday”. The fact that not everyone likes or uses them makes them noticeable when a team runs out wearing something a little different. Long live the hooped sock, in all its glory!
GAME OF THE PEOPLE 