Everyone loves to be a part of history, well that saying holds true to Bengalurean football fans with their latest obsession of buying and donning vintage football Jerseys. While sports merchandise in the city are a dime a dozen, you’ll have to dig deep into the heart of the city in order to find these rarities, often having to settle with a very accurate knockoff.
“The golden age of football was in the early 2000’s, and the current crop of football fans is the product of that. So naturally, everybody wants to own a vintage jersey, be it for the sake of nostalgia or for bragging rights over their friends,” claims Claude D’Souza, a diehard Arsenal fan.
Original Jerseys sold from showrooms like Nike, Adidas, Puma etc are quite expensive, and these showrooms tend to replace their merchandise every season, making it harder for football fans to procure shirts and shoes from yesteryear. “I like to wait until the end of a football season before choosing to buy a jersey. I do this because, if my team has won a lot of competitions that season, that kit will be a part of history and hence more valuable over time,” says Pawan Shivananjappa, a sports enthusiast.
Football fans feel that the more charismatic generation of football stars were in the past as currently the debate is on Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, over who is the greatest footballer of this generation. “The jerseys of what players used to wear are so very different from what you see today. Back then it was all about comfort and simple presentation of club colours. The jerseys you see in the beautiful game today however, are more like synthetic body suits.” explains Naven Prasad, a musician in the city.
