Links With The Past: Shilton’s White Goalkeeper’s Shirt
Between 1966 and 1974, Peter Shilton played 339 games for Leicester City, and won his first 20 England caps.
In his final season at the Club, Peter started to wear this shirt design as part of a very distinctive all-white goalkeeper’s kit. The crest sporting the initials ‘PS’ underneath the Admiral logo is evidence that he was the first player ever to wear a personalised kit.
Only four of these white shirts were ever made. One of these four, probably the only one in existence, is now part of Leicester City fan Rob O’Donnell’s remarkable collection of shirts. It is in a worn and fragile state.
Because of the fragile state of the original, he has kindly loaned this rare signed replica to the Club so that we have a physical example of this unique shirt.
One of the high profile games in which Peter wore this shirt was the 1974 FA Cup Semi-Final against Liverpool.
Thinking back to this game, Peter recently told us: "I wore this shirt in loads of games. In the semi-final replay at Villa Park, [Kevin] Keegan ran onto a long kick through the middle. He was watching the ball as it came over his head. He just took a chance and volleyed it into the top corner of the net.
"It was a superb goal. I was about three or four yards off my line. I thought he was going to control it and that I would have to smother it. I’d got my angle right. But it was an unstoppable shot. On Match of the Day, Jimmy Hill said: ‘I’m not sure about Shilton wearing that white jersey because Keegan saw him out of the corner of his eye’. Nonsense! If he’d have done that, he would have been Pelé, Diego Maradona and Marco van Basten all rolled into one!"
Peter also had some red and green shirts with the personalised crest. This was not the first innovative shirt worn by Peter at Leicester City. In 1969, he wore one specially manufactured for him which included a zip on the collar.
However, this was later banned on the grounds that the zip constituted a danger to other players on the field of play.