England's Home Uniform World Cup 1986

Uniform shirt photo supplied by and available at www.subsidesports.com

Notes

This shirt was almost identical as the home shirt released in 1984.  To cope with the Mexican heat, this shirt was a lot more lighter and was 'airtex', much akin to the 1970 World Cup shirts.  In addition, this shirt then dispensed with the navy blue cuffs with the red & stripe stripe through it.   The third most notable addition is the difference in stripes, this 1986 version was two defining shadow stripes, whereas the 1984 adorned pinstripes.

England wore their Umbro white World Cup shirts with navy blue shorts and white stockings in the first four of their five matches at the 1986 final tournament.  In the fifth, the quarterfinal against Argentina, they wore the white shirt over the pale blue shorts and stockings that were part of one of their alternate World Cup strips.  Maradona's two goals, one of them achieved by "the Hand of God," put them out of the competition, and they had no further chance to wear either their red or pale blue alternate shirts.

The red numbers on the back of the shirt were in the old Umbro style, without borders and outlines, and the white numbers worn on the shorts for the World Cup were positioned on the left thigh, above the Umbro logo, whereas for the 1982 tournament, they had been on the right.  When they wore the pale blue shorts against ASrgentina, the number was in navy blue, in the same position.

England wore all white when they defeated South Korea, 4-1 on 14th May, 1986 at Denver, Colorado in an unofficial international, used as a warm-up for the World Cup.

 

Matches in Which England Wore the World Cup 1986 White Shirt Uniform
No.	Date	Opposition	Venue	Type	F	A	Result	H.T.
612	17-May-1986	Mexico	The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Exposition Park, Los Angeles, U.S.A.	F	3	0	NW	[3-0]
613	24-May-1986	Canada	Swangard Stadium, Burnaby, British Columbia	F	1	0	AW	[0-0]
614	03-Jun-1986	Portugal	Estadio Tecnológico, Monterrey, Mexico	WCF	0	1	NL	[0-0]
615	06-Jun-1986	Morocco	Estadio Tecnológico, Monterrey, Mexico	WCF	0	0	ND	[0-0]
616	11-Jun-1986	Poland	Estadio Universitário de Nuevo León, Monterrey, Mexico	WCF	3	0	NW	[3-0]
617	18-Jun-1986	Paraguay	Estadio Azteca, Mexico City, Mexico	WCF	3	0	NW	[1-0]
618	22-Jun-1986	Argentina	Estadio Azteca, Mexico City, Mexico	WCF	1	2	NL	[0-0]
England wore the white World Cup 1986 shirt over pale blue shorts and stockings against Argentina.

Uniforms Index

19 England internationals played in the 7 games, in which this revised version of the 1984 home shirt, was worn. Terry Butcher, Glenn Hoddle and Kenny Sansom appeared in all of them.

With the period being such an important one for the national team, no players made their international debuts in the shirt. No one ended their international career in it, either.

Top scorer was Gary Lineker, with the 6 goals, which won him the World Cup’s Golden Boot. The only other players to score in the shirt were Mark Hateley, with his last 3 for his country in the two World Cup warm-up games in North America, and Peter Beardsley, with his first 2 for England.

Bryan Robson was captain 3 times in this shirt, until his dislocated shoulder ended his World Cup. Ray Wilkins captained England for the last time, against Canada. The goalkeeper, Peter Shilton took over the captaincy for the remainder of the World Cup, after Robson’s injury, but not, of course, in this shirt.

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CG/GI/PY/JB