An extract from a new book details how Australia and New Zealand wore numbers 28 years before Fifa insisted on them
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.
Numbers were already commonplace in the early 20th century, but number schemes and systems were still changeable. The link between numbers and positions on the fi eld was not necessarily a part of early football culture but evolved over time. One system that gained traction in Australia saw no markings for the goalkeepers and outfield players numbered one to 10.
A 1928 Canterbury versus Otago match has the keeper as No 2 and finishes with a winger wearing 12. In this case, the listing gives the number 12 to the right winger for Otago and the left winger for Canterbury. On the 1922 trip, the Australian players were allocated squad numbers in alphabetical order, which they used for the whole tour. Forward Wilf Bratton got number one. Again, the numbers helped a Kiwi crowd unfamiliar with the visitors to identify players.
Chapman’s Arsenal tried out using numbers for the first time in a loss to Sheffield Wednesday in 1928. The trial was occasionally repeated, Arsenal using numbered shirts in their friendly with FC Vienna in December 1933. The first major English event with shirt numbers was the 1933 FA Cup final between Everton and Manchester City.
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