What Is an Athletic Jersey?

Where does the athletic jersey come from?

The athletic jersey takes its name from jersey, the knitted cloth named after Jersey in the Channel Islands. Merriam-Webster dates the fabric sense of the word to 1587. The Online Etymology Dictionary dates the meaning “woollen knitted close-fitting tunic”, especially one worn for sport, to 1845.

Early team shirts were heavy. The National Football Museum traces football kit from “the heavy woollen jerseys of the Victorian era” to the “heavily branded” polyester of today. The Museum at FIT notes that many early sportswear garments, including gym and cycling clothes, were made from heavy wool. A former player told UEFA that winter shirts of very thick wool became “a dead weight” in the rain.

Numbers, sponsors and replicas

Most of the documented history comes from association football. Arsenal and Chelsea first wore numbered shirts in August 1928, and numbers were formally introduced in the English Football League in 1939, according to UEFA.

Sponsors came next. UEFA records that Austria Wien wore the emblem of the Schwechater brewery on its shirts in 1966. Liverpool became the first English Football League club with a shirt sponsor in 1979, through a deal with Hitachi. Three years later, UEFA allowed shirt sponsorship in its own club competitions.

By then, UEFA notes, replica shirts were starting to become more commonplace. It places the time when supporters began to wear their colours en masse, at matches and even as a fashion item away from stadiums, in the 1980s and 1990s. The National Football Museum’s exhibition Strip! How Football Got Shirty (22 November 2019 to 9 May 2021) charted this “replica boom”, as well as “high-tech advancements and retro reappraisals”.

What makes an athletic jersey a jersey?

An athletic jersey is defined by its job, not its cloth: it is the shirt a team member wears as part of a uniform, and it typically carries the athlete’s name and number on the back. Merriam-Webster describes it as often loose-fitting. A former player told UEFA that today’s football shirts are closer fitting and made from a “stretch” material, and UEFA reports the manufacturers’ promise that the modern shirt is lighter and drier than ever before.

The word causes the main confusion. In a shop or on a label, “jersey” can mean the garment or the fabric, and the two do not always go together.

Next to a T-shirt or a polo shirt, the difference is function. A jersey identifies the wearer as part of a team, and some jerseys exist to set one player apart: UEFA cites the 1909 law stating that goalkeepers “must wear colours that are distinguishable from the other players and the match officials”.

What are the main types of athletic jersey?

The main types are the match shirt worn by players, the replica sold to supporters, the goalkeeper’s shirt, retro or vintage shirts, and sport-specific jerseys such as the cycling jersey.

How do you tell a well-made athletic jersey?

You tell a well-made jersey by reading its labels, checking that the knit and any stripes run true, and making sure the badges and numbers can take the same washing as the shirt.

Read the labels

• Under US rules, most garments must carry a label giving the fibre content, the country of origin and the identity of the maker or dealer. The identity can be a company name or a Registered Identification Number (RN).
• Fibres are listed by generic name. The FTC accepts either “elastane” or “spandex” for the stretch fibre, so both names mean the same thing.
• Under US rules, a fibre below 5% by weight is disclosed as “other fiber” unless it has a definite functional significance. Wool and recycled wool are the exceptions: they must be named, with their percentage by weight, even below 5%.
• On a garment with a neck, US rules put the country of origin on a label inside the centre of the neck, midway between the shoulder seams or next to another label there. Turn the neck out and look for it.
• In the US, decorative trim applied by embroidery, overlay, appliqué or attachment is left out of the fibre statement if it covers no more than 15% of the surface. The percentages on the label therefore describe the shirt, not necessarily its crest.

Check the knit and the pattern

• Lay the shirt flat and look along the fabric. Texas A&M extension clothing-quality standards say that in knit fabrics the courses (the horizontal rows of loops) and ribs (the vertical columns) should sit at right angles.
• On a striped or hooped shirt, check the side and sleeve seams. The same standards say stripes and plaids should match at the seams, and a design should be matched, centred or balanced.
• Try it on and look at the neckline and armholes. They should fit the body without gapping or straining.
• Follow the topstitching around the collar and hem. It should run in a straight line or a smooth curve, and machine-stitched hems should be even.

Check the badges, names and numbers

• Trims should have the same care characteristics as the garment, or be easy to remove for laundering. Compare the care label with the crest, name and number: decoration that needs gentler treatment than the shirt fails this standard.

Red flags

• Knit lines that do not sit at right angles across the body.
• Stripes or hoops that jump out of line at the seams.
• A neckline that gapes or pulls when you stand straight.
• For a shirt sold in the US, no fibre content, country of origin or maker’s identity on the labels.

How do you wear an athletic jersey?

Wear an athletic jersey as a casual top, choose the size for how you plan to layer it, and keep the rest of the outfit away from sports kit so it reads as clothing.

• Size for layering. A modern match-cut shirt sits close to the body. If you want to wear it over a long-sleeved top or under an open hoodie, try the next size up before you buy.
• Change the register below the waist. Plain trousers or straight-leg jeans in a dark colour stop the shirt looking like matchday kit. Matching shorts and socks do the opposite.
• Treat it as part of a wider style. Jerseys sit naturally in streetwear and athleisure, where sports pieces are worn off the pitch. Let the jersey be the one bold item and keep the colours around it quiet.
• Buy old shirts with care. For vintage shirts, run the label checks above, and look for the neck label. US rules require new garments to carry the country of origin there, but the FTC’s labelling rules do not cover secondhand items that are obviously used unless the seller makes a claim about fibre, so a genuine vintage shirt may lack one.