Socceroos centenary: how the Pacific pioneered numbered football shirts

16-Jun-2022 17:30:01 | Guardian

An extract from a new book details how Australia and New Zealand wore numbers 28 years before Fifa insisted on them

The New Zealand versus Australia match at Carisbrook in 1922 offered so many sporting contest firsts that its claim as an important milestone in the history of international football has been overlooked. This was the first full international match featuring two national teams wearing numbered shirts. Twenty-eight years before Fifa insisted on team numbers at the 1950 World Cup in Brazil, the trans-Tasman neighbours pioneered an innovation that would become a standard requirement in the global game. But even this historic move in 1922 came long after New Zealand and New South Wales started using numbers on their home and away 1904 and 1905 tours.

The numbers were intended to help fans identify players by matching the numerals on players’ backs with the corresponding names on a scorecard or match programme, which could be purchased or provided at the ground. This was particularly useful for international and inter-regional matches where visiting players were unknown by sight to even the most avid of home team football aficionados. Numbered shirts came to soccer via New Zealand rugby. Australian sports fans saw the All Blacks wearing numbers on their jumpers on their 1897 tour. The idea caught on among Australia’s rugby fraternity and was used at least sporadically in representative matches. Rugby and Australian Rules football codes had experimented with numbers as far back as the 1880s, but the practice was not fully embraced or retained.