What a day it was on August 25th 1928, the opening day of the new season, when Arsenal and Chelsea made history by wearing numbers on the back of their shirts, for their first league games of the season. Arsenal were at Hillsborough in a Division 1 game but lost 3-2, in front of 23,684.
On the same day, numbers were also worn, when another London club, Chelsea, in Division 2, played Swansea Town and won 4-0 in front of 47,264, all of whom knew who was who.
The original numbering system was set assuming the goalkeeper was number 1 and then it followed the 2-3-5 system, set by the first "official" football formation. Early days had a line up of 1-1-9....don't ask! In 1954, Switzerland's World Cup squad were given numbers for the whole of the tournament, for the first time.
In 1958, the Brazilian squad forgot to include Pele, who eventually was given the number 10 by an "administrator", setting a trend. Goalkeeper Gilmar had number 3.
In 1974 the Argentinan squad were numbered alphabetically, so goalkeeper Fillol wore 12, 5 and then 7, in three consecutive tournaments. Maradona insisted on wearing 10 (like Pele?) There's more here:
https://oldschoolfootball.co.uk/blogs/news/evolution-of-the-football-shirt-number
Above is Chilean, Zamorano at Inter Milan, who got the "ump" because Ronaldo was given the number 9 shirt, so he added a small + between his 1 and 8. Fair enough.
Not so fortunate on this day, were Rotherham United who met Bradford City at Valley Parade and were hammered 11-1 on the opening day of the season. Still the record score for each club.
Forty years ago the West Indies played a one day floodlit match v Essex CCC at Stamford Bridge. More of that tomorrow. Rain is affecting match at Southampton today BUT NOT Jimmy Anderson's record achievement.
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