The Good, The Bad, The WTF

Today's shirt does not fall into the usual realm of this feature. There is no bad design. There is no awful pattern. There is no sublimated print, though the shirt is from the '90s. No, today's shirt is what happens when you use trendy coloration and then a decade passes.


The season from which this shirt comes, 1995-96, is one year before Elton John rebought his interest in Watford after 10 years away. Could the sight of these colors have enticed him back? Or was it that, after seeing this away shirt, he knew his beloved club were heading in the wrong direction? I'll leave you to ruminate on that, for I certainly do not have the answers.

To me, this looks like a discarded Vancouver Grizzlies warmup top. A team which, not coincidentally, started up in 1995. I don't know who deigned that purple and teal not only looked good together, but were the it colors of the time, but it showed up in force at Watford. Ugly, ugly stuff.

And what about that sponsorship? I remember 1995 fairly well. I had a car (Ford Escort, if you must know) with a factory sound system. From time to time I would peruse some catalogues looking for ways to update said system. Blaupunkt were, to my friends and acquaintances at least, the gold standard at the time. For a princely sum, one could update their car's sound system with a new stereo and subwoofers to really blast that Miami Bass that was so popular at the time. It wouldn't have made Soundgarden sound much better, though, so I stayed away.

Are you looking to replay 1995? If so, then this is the eBay auction for you. For a mere 10 pounds (plus postage) you can be the proud owner of this unique shirt. As a special bonus, it's actually (probably) wearable by an adult. Unlike most old shirt auctions on eBay, this is not a Youth Large or some such, this is in fact a Adult Extra Large. Though, given size inflation and the UK to US sizing conversion, it's probably about equivalent to a modern US Medium.