The best football kits of the 1960s were simple, heavy and quietly revolutionary — no sponsors, no player names, just thick cotton, a number on the back and a badge over the heart. It was the decade football shirts stopped being plain workwear and started becoming the designs collectors still chase today on our classic jerseys rail.
What made 1960s football shirts different
If you have only ever worn a modern shirt, a genuine sixties kit feels like a jumper. Shirts were made from heavy brushed cotton or early nylon blends, cut long in the body so they stayed tucked in, and almost always long-sleeved — short sleeves were for summer tours and hot afternoons. Collars were the giveaway of the era: the buttoned polo collar of the fifties gave way to the crew neck and the deep V-neck, a shift you can trace in more detail in our guide to football shirt collars.
Numbering was strictly 1 to 11 and tied to position, not to the player. There were no names on the back anywhere in Europe, no sponsor logos (shirt sponsorship did not arrive in England until 1979), and manufacturer branding was usually a small woven tab rather than a swoosh across the chest. Umbro, Bukta and Litesome dominated Britain; on the continent, most clubs simply had shirts made locally. That restraint is exactly why these designs have aged so well.
England 1966: the most famous change shirt ever made
You cannot discuss the best football kits of the 1960s without the red Umbro shirt England wore at Wembley on 30 July 1966. England’s first choice was white, but a colour clash with West Germany sent them into red — crew neck, small woven Three Lions badge, no numbers on the front. Bobby Moore lifting the Jules Rimet trophy in it turned a change kit into a national icon, and it remains the single most reproduced shirt in English football. If you want the modern descendants of that design, the England jersey range is the place to start, and the badge itself has a longer story in the story behind the Three Lions crest.
Celtic 1967: hoops that won a European Cup
Celtic’s green and white hoops were already old by 1967, but the Lisbon Lions made them immortal by becoming the first British club to win the European Cup, beating Internazionale 2-1 with a side born within roughly thirty miles of Celtic Park. The shirt was plain hooped cotton with numbers on the shorts rather than the back — a Scottish quirk that lasted into the nineties. It is a reminder that the strongest kit designs are usually the oldest and least fussy.
Real Madrid: all white, all decade
Real Madrid opened the sixties by winning the 1960 European Cup final 7-3 against Eintracht Frankfurt at Hampden Park, still widely called the finest club performance of the era. The all-white kit barely changed for ten years: white shirt, white shorts, small crest, occasionally a deep V-neck. Alfredo Di Stéfano and Ferenc Puskás wearing it is the founding image of the modern superclub, and the template survives almost untouched in today’s La Liga shirts and across the wider European jersey collection.
Leeds United: the kit that was changed on purpose
One of the decade’s most deliberate design decisions came from Elland Road. In 1961 Don Revie scrapped Leeds’ blue and gold and switched the club to all white, explicitly copying Real Madrid in the hope that the association would rub off. It worked well enough that Leeds’ white kit, later with the sock tags and the smiley badge, became one of the most recognisable identities in the Premier League era clubs’ back catalogue. Few clubs have ever rebranded so nakedly — and few have got away with it.
Manchester United 1968: blue at Wembley
United’s 4-1 extra-time win over Benfica in the 1968 European Cup final was played in an all-blue change kit, another clash-driven choice that outlived the shirt it replaced. Benfica’s own red shirt of the period, worn by Eusébio, is one of the cleanest designs Portugal has produced; the modern Portugal jersey line still leans on that same deep red. For anyone building a collection around famous finals, 1968 is a strong and underrated entry point.
Brazil and South America in the sixties
Brazil won the 1962 World Cup in Chile in the yellow shirt with green trim they had adopted in 1954, and by the end of the decade it was already the most recognisable kit on earth — though the shirt most people picture, the 1970 Mexico version, belongs to the following decade. The 1960s versions were heavier, with a smaller crest and no manufacturer mark at all. Argentina, meanwhile, wore the light blue and white stripes at the notorious 1966 quarter-final at Wembley. Both lineages run straight through to today’s Brazil jersey and Argentina jersey ranges, and the wider South America section covers the rest of the continent.
Italy, Germany and the continental classics
Internazionale’s Grande Inter under Helenio Herrera won back-to-back European Cups in 1964 and 1965 in black and blue stripes so simple they have never needed a redesign. Italy took the 1968 European Championship on home soil in the plain azure blue that remains the country’s calling card — see the current Italy jersey options. West Germany’s white shirt with black trim, worn by a young Franz Beckenbauer at the 1966 final, set the pattern that the Germany jersey has returned to again and again. Spain’s red, worn by the 1964 European Championship winners, completes the set alongside the modern Spain jersey.
Why sixties designs keep coming back
Kit manufacturers raid this decade constantly, and for good reason. A plain colour block, a modest crest and a clean neckline suit modern fabrics just as well as they suited cotton, and they photograph better than busy graphic prints. The retro-leaning templates showing up in recent national team jerseys and club jerseys are, more often than not, sixties ideas rebuilt in polyester. If you want the historical background on how those competitions were organised, FIFA’s official site keeps full archives of every tournament mentioned here.
Collecting and wearing sixties-inspired kits
Original 1960s match shirts are museum pieces and priced accordingly, so almost everyone collects the modern reissues instead. A few practical notes: sixties-cut reproductions usually run longer in the body and slimmer in the sleeve than a current replica, so check measurements rather than assuming your usual size; heavier retro fabrics also hold creases, so fold rather than hang them. Our football jersey size guide covers the fit differences in full.
Shop the classics and the modern kits
The best football kits of the 1960s are proof that a great shirt needs a colour, a crest and very little else. Browse the classic jerseys collection for retro-inspired designs, or look ahead to next summer with the World Cup 2026 jerseys hub. Questions about sizing, shipping or customisation are answered on our FAQ page, and you can read more about who we are on the about us page.
