This was probably just me, but when I was a kid I did wonder whether the reason you saw so few football teams wearing green was the worry that they’d blend in with the pitch and thus become difficult to see. I don’t know how I thought this’d translate down at pitch level; maybe the players would just see floating shorts and hovering limbs. Look, gimme a break, I was a pre-teen. If wearing green does make it more difficult to pick out your teammates, here’s a shirt from a club that decided to take that risk. It’s Italian club US Avellino 1912’s 1995-96 home shirt!
It’s a shirt that most definitely comes from the nineties. The abstract pattern and spray-brushed look of the sleeves and the Diadora logo woven into the polyester body of the shirt itself anchor the shirt very much in that time period – although the lace-up “granddad” collar and the embroidered badge do give this kit just the whiff of a bygone age, when the footballs were made from unrelenting leather and every England player was called Stan. I like that it doesn’t have a sponsor’s logo plastered across the front, too. I’ll admit that overall it’s not the most exciting shirt in the world, but it’s one of my favourites just because I accidentally ended up paying more attention to US Avellino than I ever thought I would.
People pick up “second” teams to follow all the time, for all kinds of reasons. Maybe your all-time favourite player transferred to them. Perhaps you saw a foreign team playing in the Intertoto Cup and were captivated by their unusual style, (which reminds me, I have to keep an eye out for a Gornik Zabrze shirt,) or their names appeared on a Subbuteo team hanging in a shop window and you simply had to learn more about them. In my case, I play a lot of football videogames, and once upon a time I was picking a team to control in a management sim – I’m almost certain it was Football Masters – and I ended up choosing Avellino. Why? Who can remember, but at a guess I’d say it was a combination of the unusual green shirts, the wolf’s head badge, the glamour of Italian football and the fact that they were low enough in the Italian football pyramid to provide plenty of opportunity for growth.
Ever since, I’ve kept an eye on Avellino, checking in on their progress a few times during each season and repeatedly dragging them up to be Champions League contenders in various FIFA games. Sadly I won’t be able to create another world-beating Avellino team in the new FIFA, because the game doesn’t feature the Italian Serie D and that’s where Avellino find themselves this coming season.
Avellino have had a rough ride in recent years. After bouncing around the top two divisions for many years (including a decade-long spell in Serie A during the eighties) the club went bankrupt in 2009 and had to start again in Serie D. Undeterred, they hauled themselves back up to the second tier – only to be demoted to Serie D once at the end of last season, supposedly for not filling in paperwork correctly or possibly not paying certain administration fees. As is always the case in Italian football, this was followed by cries of conspiracy and underhanded dealing, and who knows where the appeals process will lead. For the moment it looks like Avellino are back to the bottom of the pile, and I’ll be keeping an eye on their progress as they attempt to return to the top. Okay, return to Serie B, which seems like their natural home. For now, though, here’s some footage of this very kit in action, during a 1995 match against Salernitana.
Check out the goal at about three minutes in – chested down and then volleyed into the top corner? Very nice. I certainly didn’t score many of those on FIFA.
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