The best centenary crests on football kits
How clubs celebrated their 100th anniversary through their logo
August 30th, 2023
Everton have unveiled their new third shirt, made by Hummel to celebrate an important milestone for the Liverpool club. In fact, this season the Toffees are celebrating the 100th anniversary of the club's birth and to do so they have chosen to give fans a commemorative shirt, which has already entered the most important pages of Everton's history for its significance. The shirt features a new detail, never seen before in the recent kits made by the English team: it is the crest featuring the stylization of Prince Rupert's Tower, a building located in the Everton district of Liverpool and present in the club's official coat of arms. The decision to create a special crest for the 100th anniversary of the club's foundation is not, however, a new one for clubs. In the past, many teams have enriched details or modified the colors of the more traditional version, making their shirts among the most remembered and appreciated by collectors.
In Italy, for example, Lazio and Juventus have included the number 100 in large letters, the Bianconeri in particular with an interesting creative choice that went perfectly with the historic pink jersey of 1997. The number 100 is obviously a returning element, but what all versions have in common is an enrichment of the design - the opposite direction to Everton's - recapturing the retro feel of football shirts. A glimpse of the past is something very much present in jersey designs today, which is why centenary crests always attract the attention of jersey fans and collectors. The choice to make the crest more solemn with gold details, crowns or other references to the centenary history then completes an imagery that is reinforced in the light of the latest trends in football jerseys.
Many clubs have now passed the milestone and are preparing to celebrate intermediate birthdays before reaching the bicentenary. If the choice is to continue to offer new versions of the clubs' symbols and colours, focusing on an approach that looks to the past as we can already see from recent releases, then we can be sure that we will continue to see jerseys worth adding to our collections.