It's Christmas!!

Christmas and football have a deep connection that dates back to the famous Christmas Day Truce and the football match played between the trenches in WW1. In modern times, the rampant commercialisation of football and the holiday season have gone hand in hand, with each benefitting the other. Matches provide a welcome break from the barrage of turkey and Christmas songs and, for British clubs in particular, Christmas is an opportunity to peddle new seasonal products to their fans around the world, and no product is more seasonal – or more in demand – than the ubiquitous Christmas Jumper. The festive fashion accessory so important, it has its own day.?

From the big and bold to retro classics, teams from The Premier League and The Scottish Premiership, offer fans a range of options of this festive favourite and for this week’s Ramble – the final one of 2023 – we’ve decided embrace the spirit of giving and give you the gift that you never knew you wanted…our Top 10 Football Christmas Jumpers for 2023! ?

First, it’s important to establish some ground rules. The jumpers we’ve looked at are all official products available via official club shops. There are hundreds of unofficial options available – some of them much better than the club’s own offerings – but for the purposes of this review we’ve gone strictly official. We’ve also only looked at jumpers so natty Christmas sweatshirts and festive t-shirts are also excluded.?

Second, we need to understand what makes a good Christmas jumper, football themed or otherwise. The answers we think lie in the different ages of their history. Firstly, they should be woollen and have elements of Nordic design in keeping with their Scandinavian heritage. They should be brightly coloured in a nod to the versions made famous by UK television presenters like Timmy Mallett and Gyles Brandreth in the eighties. ?Design-wise they should have moved on from the “looks like you nan’s knitted it” vibe of the nineties and should feature as many Christmas icons as possible - ideally with a solid Christmas themed pun thrown in for good measure, as is the way of many of the jumpers that adorn shop walls and web pages this Christmas.?

In a footballing context, some teams by the nature of their kit colours, would seem to have an unfair advantage. As any Coca-Cola ad exec will tell you, red is the colour of Christmas and so you’d think teams like Liverpool and Man Utd would come out on top but teams who play in less festive colours also punch their weight and – spoiler alert – one featuring a big yellow Santa even makes the top ten (much to the annoyance of the aforementioned coke ad-execs, we are sure). ?

Finally, to give you the level of highbrow insight and opinion you’ve come to expect, we’ve analysed the range of Christmas jumpers across British top flight football and divided them up into what we think are the main categories, with the winners from each making up our top ten selection. We’ve also highlighted some of the Champion offerings from Europe and the clubs who need to try harder next year.?

Right, that's the formalities out the way. Let's jump into it (pun very much intended...)?

?Jumpers that combine classical Nordic design, with snowflakes and reindeer a plenty! For us the two winners here are Bournemouth and West Ham, due to the inclusion of some quality club themed Christmas puns. I’m mean, what’s not to like about Cherry Christmas!!?

Category nominees?

• Bournemouth
• Brighton?
• Crystal Palace?
• Fulham?
• West Ham?

Category winners?

• Bournemouth?
• West Ham?

?These sport the same Nordic design elements as their classic counterparts but place the clubs crest front and centre. For those who want to make sure they’re showing their cub allegiance as much as their love of Christmas. Our winners here are Brentford, who’s offering smacks of 70s cool and Sheffield United for their Santa coloured masterpiece.?

Category nominees?

• Brentford?
• St Mirren?
• Motherwell?
• Sheffield United?
• Burnley?

Category winners?

• Brentford?
• Sheffield United ?

Jumpers for people who want their senses assaulted. Eye grabbing and offending in equal measure, these are garish with a capital G. Our winners here are Luton Town’s spectacular orange number and Everton’s retro collage classic.?

Category nominees?

• Luton Town?
• Everton?
• Newcastle?
• Nottingham Forest

Category winners?

• Luton Town?
• Everton?

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Fashions come and go, then usually come back round again. This is especially true in football where classic kits are revered and are increasingly influencing Christmas Jumper design. This Christmas a number of leading clubs on both sides of the border have paid homage to yesteryear, with our favourites being Aberdeen’s ode to their 1990 Scottish Cup Final kit and Man City’s wonderful Santa parody of their Brother branded classic from the late 80s. ??

Category nominees?

• Aberdeen?
• Arsenal?
• Man City?
• Sheffield United?
• Nottingham Forest?

Category winners?

• Aberdeen?
• Man City?

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Heavy in 80s kitsch and commercial exploitation, some Christmas jumpers lean on oversized cartoony characters for their design inspiration and this year several top clubs have gone down this route. Some big names chosen to lead with Gonkers (ask your kids) but our favourites in this category – Hearts and Wolves - use more familiar festive favourites.?

Category nominees?

• Celtic?
• Hearts?
• Man Utd?
• Spurs?
• Wolves?

Category winners?

• Hearts?
• Wolves?

Although not considered for our top ten, we wanted to highlight that festive football jumpers are not the exclusive preserve of the British Isles. There are some absolute belters available from Europe’s big guns including a number from PSG that looks like it comes from a fashion show and efforts from Ajax and Dortmund that had us considering switching allegiances just so we could buy them! There’s also a few stinkers out there too, most notably Barcelona’s “made by granny” special.?

Finally, we would be remiss to imply that all is rosy in football’s Christmas jumper garden. Some clubs look like they had other priorities this year, especially Manchester United who’s reindeer themed number looks like bargain supermarket offering and some clubs (Aston Villa/Everton and Dundee/Kilmarnock) couldn’t even be bothered to produce their own designs!?

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So the Christmas jumpers that make our top ten, in alphabetical order, are Aberdeen, Bournemouth, Brentford, Everton, Hearts, Luton, Manchester City, Sheffield United, West Ham and Wolves. Well done to all the designers involved!?

In terms of ranking them, certain jumpers do excel but given the different styles involved, trying to objectively order them seemed rather unfair (for example, is a Christmas pun worth more or less than classic retro styling?).

So instead, we’ll share with you our personal favourites – see below. We’d love to know which ones floated your boats and if there are any official ones out there you think we’ve missed.?

Answers on a (Christmas) postcard please…?

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The Sports TEC Ramble usually comes from the weekly musings of our consultants Kevin Bain & David Wright on all things sport and technology. This week it was just a chat about Christmas Jumpers...