Classic Celtic football shirts: Vintage kits through the years

Celtic’s traditional home kit colours are green and white in the form of horizontal hoops, but their original shirt consisted of a white top with black shorts and black and green hooped socks.

In 1889, the club changed to a green and white vertically striped top and for the next 14 years this remained unchanged until 1903 when they adopted their now famous hooped top design. The Hoops began using a badge in the 1930s, featuring a four leaf clover logo surrounded by the club’s former title, “The Celtic Football and Athletic Coy. Ltd”.

However, it wasn’t until 1977 that Celtic finally used the club crest on their shirts. The club’s tradition of wearing numbers on their shorts rather than on the back of their shirts was brought to an end when the Scottish Football League instructed them to wear numbers on their back from the start of the 1994/95 season. They took up a shirt sponsorship for the first time in 1984, with Fife-based double glazing firm CR Smith having their logo displayed on the front of the kit.

The design of away shirts has varied far more than the traditional home strip over the years, feautring a range of unique designs and colour combinations. In March 2015, the club agreed a new kit deal worth £30million with Boston-based sportswear manufacturer New Balance. All of the jerseys for the 2017/18 campaign paid tribute to the Lisbon Lions, with the kits having a line on each side to represent the handles of the European Cup and featured a specifically designed commemorative crest.

In March 2020, Celtic signed a five-year partnership with Adidas in a deal believed to be the biggest kit sponsorship ever in Scottish sport. The Parkhead club have had a number of kit suppliers over the years, including Umbro (1960s-2005), Nike (2005-15), New Balance (2015-20) and currently Adidas (2020-present).

Here are some of our standouts...