Wolves shirt history book shows power of supporter's identity

What is it that gives a club its identity? There is the history, the stadium, the managers, the players and the fans.

But perhaps nothing identifies a club more than the shirt. Worn down the years by every player, changed regularly - sometimes controversially - but always there to identify a club.

Every supporter has a favourite shirt. Whether eight or 80 years old, once fans have seen their team play the shirt means something special. The older we get the more we become attached to certain shirts - more likely the ones involving successful times or from childhood when supporting a football club was a far more romantic ideal than it is in adult life.

This week one Wolverhampton Wanderers supporter will launch a book that has been painstakingly researched over two years of his life. 'They Wore The Shirt' is a chronological record of 140 years of the club's changing strips, including up-to-date photographs of every known shirt that has survived from the club's long history. Author and collector Steve Plant came up with the idea as a tribute to his father, a dyed-in-the-wool Wanderer, who he lost to cancer four years ago.

"As football fans there is nothing we relate to more when supporting our teams than the colours," Plant explains. "Just by specifying a shirt in old gold and black you know instantly it's the colours of Wolverhampton Wanderers. The first game I saw was against Manchester United in 1969 and I have been a fanatic ever since.

"My first hero was John Richards and then Steve Bull after that. It was a fantastic feeling when both of them turned up for the first photo shoot, John with his 1974 League Cup Final shirt."

Plant readily admits collecting all the shirts to be photographed has been an incredibly arduous task. "If I am honest it's been a nightmare at times, sourcing shirts missing from my collection and persuading people to send their valuable pride and joy to be photographed was not easy. Somehow we ended up with 113 different shirts, the oldest being from 1908."

The book's collection began with a simple eBay purchase. "A George Elokobi shirt from the Mick McCarthy era complete with holes and a big Vics ointment stain on the front was the first item in the collection. It was quickly followed by anything I could get my hands on."

The oldest shirt Plant discovered came all the way from western state of Alberta in Canada. The owner stumbled across it in a bric-a-brac shop believing it to be an old ice hockey shirt. It was only when he trawled the internet looking for comparisons that he saw a photograph of a Wolves shirt from that era. Not long after, the shirt was reunited with the club for a picture in the book.

Some famous names have worn the Wolves kit down the years. Former England captain Billy Wright led the team out in the memorable European floodlit friendlies of the 1950s when a specially commissioned fluorescent gold shirt was worn to shine out against the light of the floodlights, making it easy for television viewers watching in black and white to pick up.

"Just before the book was due to go for printing, out of the blue I had a phone call from a total stranger saying he had a shirt that he thought should be in my collection," Plant reveals. "That same day he turned up with Jimmy Murray's 'fluorescent' number 9 shirt from the floodlit friendly against Moscow Dynamo in 1955, the game my Dad always talked about."

One of the most famous photographs in the book is of Led Zeppelin frontman and Wolves supporter Robert Plant. He is playing on a Los Angeles park pitch wearing nothing more than a pair of stripy underpants and a Wolves shirt from the 1970s. The rock legend is close friends with former Wolves stars Richards and Kenny Hibbitt and is believed to have been given the shirt by one of the players for the band's tour of America at the time.

The launch of 'They Wore The Shirt' at Molineux this Wednesday evening will give supporters the chance to see the finished work. All proceeds from the book are being donated to the Birmingham Children's Hospital cancer unit. "We already have over 200 guests and legends confirmed for the launch party at Molineux with more than 400 of the 1877 copies already sold," says Plant. "Our target for the charity is £20,000 with £5,000 already raised which will be handed over on the night. The club have been absolutely brilliant. They have embraced the project without exception, even allowing us to remove the priceless early shirts from their collection in the museum to photograph on a mannequin."

Current captain Danny Batth, who will be present on the night, believes the book has a unique appeal for fans. "The Wolves shirt is iconic in all its different versions and I think all fans will enjoy taking a trip down memory lane and seeing some of the famous kits from the club's illustrious history."