Classic and Retro Wolves Football Shirts

There can’t be many clubs who can claim their city’s motto for their kit inspiration. Wolverhampton Wanderers’ hold that grand distinction and their highly recognisable old gold and black strip apparently originates from the city’s motto ‘Out of darkness cometh light’; the old gold symbolising the light and the black, of course, the darkness.  Since the colours’ arrival in the early 1890s, the club have adapted them in a wide variety of ways including stripes, halves and even a curious diagonal jersey before settling permanently in 1929 on a plain old gold shirt with black trim, paired with black shorts and either old gold or black socks (although in the early 1920s white shorts were preferred). One of the most innovative Wolves’ home kits arrived courtesy of Puma in 1996 who, with the aid of a plunging neckline and black sleeves, cunningly designed the whole football jersey to reproduce the club’s famous wolf’s head logo. Recent away kits have been black, but historically white is the typical Wolves’ change outfit. Although to be honest, for any team that sports a variation of a gold/amber/yellow home kit there aren’t that many occasions when a change strip is necessary. This didn’t stop Wolves launching third kits in the early 1990s however when the replica shirt market expanded! TV and video manufacturers Tatung became the first Wolves shirt sponsor in 1982 and subsequently were followed by a mixed array of short-term deals. The longest shirt sponsor in the club’s history though was with Wolverhampton-based tyre company Goodyear, that lasted from 1990 to 2002