As football shirt lovers, I can safely assume that you’re all familiar with the famous football attire of Fiorentina (La Viola if you want to get a little bit fancy). But why oh why do I have an unhealthy attachment with a club that I have no affiliation with? Well, if you keep reading, I’ll try and explain it as best I can.

The beautiful city of Florence (Google images showed me that it was beautiful. I’ve never been; I know nothing about it) is home to almost 400,000 citizens and five football clubs – Fiorentina being the most well-known and the most supported, of course. Now, I can name a fair few current Fiorentina players (thanks Football Manager) but they’re not the reason that Fiorentina has won me over, gaining my undeniable love and support – it was the iconic fleur-de-li crest, the striking purple strips, the purple and white checkerboard Le Felpe Dei Grandi sweatshirt, to be specific. 

What’s a Le Felpe Dei Grandi sweatshirt I hear you ask? Well, for those uneducated folk at the back, it was a promotion held by Parmalat -yes, that famous Parma sponsor – whereby the purchase of their dairy products would result in the exchange of tokens. Said tokens could then be taken to the shop and swapped for one of your favourite top flight Italian teams’ sweatshirts. Well, you could do so if you were in Italy in the early 90s. I was not. I merely stumbled across the Fiorentina one on Ebay and fell head over heels for it. My love for the purple-themed club is clear to all as I even forked out a fiver for a 90s Fiorentina scarf, what more do you want from me? 

If you aren’t familiar with their chess-like sweatshirt, you may know them from quite an unfortunate mistake within their 1992 away shirt. If not: what looked like a fairly innocent shirt, quite a nice looking one actually, turned out to have a, erm… erm…swastika either side of the collar. Yes, you read that right. It wasn’t just the mishap of a swastika or two on the shirt that made it iconic but the 7up sponsor too, let’s remember. Fiorentina’s inclination of an iconic sponsor makes it difficult not to fall in love with them. Whether it be the smiling ice cream mascot of Sammontana slapped in the middle of the shirt or the eye-catching Nintendo stretched across the chest, it’s hard not to be a sucker for their kits. And for me, it’s not just their kits, but their 90s jackets too. Hard to take your eyes away from them at times, the often purple and white colour schemes tend to create famed training wear, craved for by many, not just me, I promise. 

All in all, I know nothing about Florence and very little about Fiorentina as a club, but what I do know is that they make phenomenal shirts, sweatshirts and jackets. They muster up the ‘il meglio del meglio’ (créme de la créme) of football attire and I thank them for that by spending all of my money on it.

(By Ptolemy04 on Twitter)