Football Shirts: Remembering Reebok's Fantastic Liverpool jerseys

A look at a bygone era in football shirts

A cool, rainy Monday in the northwest of England has sent the summer warm weather away. Work motivation isn’t high and there are plenty of rabbit holes to be sucked into. One of the worst rabbit holes of them all is football shirts.   

Being a fan of football shirts and having a small collection (somewhere north of 100 jerseys), I spent a good part of the morning looking at Liverpool’s kit history courtesy of the great website Football Kit Archive. If you like kits as much as I do, then this is the website to explore.  

It is a chance to compare the different Liverpool shirts from years gone by. I’m not a big fan of the modern Nike-produced kits, although I do like the upcoming 2023-24 number – which was influenced by a kit from the 1970s. Nike just seems to struggle to make an original Liverpool home kit. The company’s only successes come from shirts inspired by past kit makers.   

My favourite era of Liverpool shirts is the Reebok years. Perhaps it is due to Reebok no longer making football kits or just the uniqueness of those designs, but there is simply something about them I love. Unfortunately, I have zero jerseys from the Reebok era in my collection these days. Cash-strapped in my 20s, I sold the few I had at the time. Hopefully, they found a good home.   

The 1996-97 season was the first in which Liverpool wore Reebok-made kits. It was a time when the big clubs typically only had a home and away kit – there was no third shirt. Moreover, the home shirt was made to last for two seasons. Now, teams change their home and away kits every season. Although Brentford have bucked the trend and are now alternating between wearing their home or away kit for back-to-back seasons.   

Sustainability is an issue and Brentford must be applauded for their decision. I’m always interested in what some clubs are doing to help reduce waste when it comes to kits. Forest Green Rovers shirt material is made up of 50% bamboo. They previously used old coffee grounds to manufacture their shirts. Hashtag United had their 2022-23 kits made by Hummel and the Danish sportswear company used “up to eight recycled plastic bottles” to make their polyester tops.   

Reebok remained Liverpool’s kit manufacturer until 2006 when Adidas took over. I will admit, I love the Adidas Liverpool home top from 2006 to 2008. I’m a big fan of collars. I remember buying the shirt and getting ‘Gerrard 8’ on the back. I wore that shirt so much that the Carlsberg logo, the 'Gerrard," and number '8' on the back peeled off. That first year of Adidas-produced kits was great, but I still think Reebok’s releases were better overall. Indeed, Reebok’s kits, for me, are only rivalled by New Balance in the 2010s.   

It is difficult to pick just one Reebok-made home shirt. The 1998-2000 top is great, and the 2023-24 Nike-made shirt will be very similar. I’m also a fan of the 2001-03 European home shirt. The 2005-06 European home shirt is another eye-catching top. However, of the Reebok shirts, the 2004-06 jersey is hard to beat. It was the jersey Liverpool wore in the Champions League final against AC Milan.   

For away shirts, I’ve always been partial to yellow. There was a time when yellow jerseys featured prominently for Liverpool. Just once since 2014-15 have Liverpool worse yellow for away games, however. Nike produced a smart-looking yellow kit in 2021-22. However, yellow is now reserved mostly for the goalkeepers.   

Perhaps one reason the Reebok kits are so striking is because they came from more than 20 years ago. Nostalgia lingers long in the world of football. I remember watching the weekly Premier League review show on satellite television when I got home from school growing up in the United States. At the time, it was the closest I could get to seeing Liverpool play on a weekly basis.   

Back then, there were fewer kits produced. Between 1996 and 2006, just five Liverpool home shirt designs were made. That is a 10-season period and only five different home jerseys were worn. By the time you got to the end of the second season, you couldn’t wait to see a new top. I remember in the early 2000s searching the Internet to find the latest leaked shirts. It felt so special. Now, teams wear the next season’s home shirt in their final Premier League match of the season. The new shirts aren’t special anymore.  

Nike is preparing for their fourth season as Liverpool kit maker. The American sportswear giant will release a fourth different home kit. It took Reebok eight years to release a fourth version of the Liverpool home top.   

Football has changed, and big clubs having one kit for two seasons is unlikely to become the norm again. There are just too many fans around the world and too much money to be made. If you have seen the price of new shirts in recent years, you know exactly how much money is on the table.  

While it may not be the legacy fans buying up the tops and other merchandise, there are plenty of new fans ready to spend their cash. The old days weren’t necessarily better, but they were different. But I will say those Liverpool Reebok kits were something special.