Northern Ireland has a proud history in the international game and has arguably punched above their weight in recent years, considering the country’s small population.
However, Northern Ireland’s football history is complicated. From 1888 until 1921, the country played football alongside its neighbour, the Republic of Ireland.
The Irish Free State was formed in 1921 (Now Republic of Ireland), but both countries played as ‘Ireland’, and players often flitted between the two national teams. Both teams referred to themselves as ‘Ireland’ as recently as the 1970s.
In this article, we will look at how the Northern Ireland national team kit has changed over the years.
The early days
As it is difficult to separate the north from the Republic, we will only give a relatively brief description of the kits before the 1940s, when the two national teams began to be acknowledged as separate national teams.
The first ‘Ireland’ kit saw the team wearing a blue jersey, white shorts, and black socks with a yellow Celtic cross on the badge. However, by 1931, the kit had changed to the more recognisable green jerseys with a white collar, white shorts and blue socks. The green kits had previously been associated with the amateur team.
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The team continued to wear those colours until 1931. There was a somewhat surprising switch in the 1931 version of the kit, as the team’s badge resembled a shamrock similar to that worn by the Republic of Ireland team instead of the Celtic cross that was previously worn.
The kit used from 1936 until 1939 changed slightly. The socks remained blue but had a blue and white striped design at the top. In the years that followed, the kit remained loosely the same, although the team did wear white and green striped socks in a 2-2 draw against England at Goodison Park in 1947.
Now playing as Northern Ireland
Biser Todorov, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
After FIFA intervened in 1953, the national team started playing as Northern Ireland rather than just ‘Ireland’. The jersey’s badge had already changed in 1952, with the yellow Celtic cross returning to replace the shamrock.
Between 1955 and 1957, the jersey acquired a V-neck collar, and the shorts became less baggy, more in keeping with the European style. The kit socks were now also green with white at the top.
The only real change until 1960 was that the Celtic cross was now on a white background. At various points, Northern Ireland wore either black or green shorts but always wore the same emerald-green jersey. In the 1970s, the badge was briefly moved to the centre of the shirt.
That was brief. During the 1970s and 1980s, the home shirt featured white stripes or different shades of green on the jersey. In the 1990s, a Northern Ireland jersey featured two different shades of green in a diamond pattern.
From 1996 to 1998, the jersey featured green and dark blue quarters, a nod to the team’s past use of blue. The jersey also featured dark blue on the sleeve, which stretched onto the bottom corner of the shirt’s left-hand side.
However, since then, the kit has mainly been green, with occasional accents of blue or white, usually in the form of trim or lines on the jersey.
