Tottenham Hotspur Home Strips 1882-2023
My Football Facts ⇒ English Football ⇒ Tottenham Hotspur
An illustrated guide to all of Tottenham Hotspur’s home strips from 1882 to 2023.
The blue and white halved strip was adopted in honour of Blackburn Rovers first of three successive FA Cup wins, while the much more familiar lilly white shirts and navy shorts was in homage to the great Preston North End team who were the first Football League Champions in 1888-89. The famous Spurs cockerel was first seen on the shirts after Tottenham’s second FA Cup triumph in 1921. Season 2010-11 saw Tottenham Hotspur with two shirt sponsors – Autonomy for Premier League games and Investec for the Domestic Cup and UEFA Champions League matches.
Tottenham Hotspur’s Away Strips 1889 to 2020
Tottenham Hotspur Away & Third Strips 1899-2013
Kit graphics (c) Historical Football Kits and reproduced by kind permission.
Tottenham Hotspur Club Crest & Badge
The Hotspur Football club started life in 1882 with an embroidered “H” surrounded by a shield on their navy blue shirts.
The next season saw the initials “HFC” in pale blue which gave way to a Maltese Cross on our “Blackburn Rovers” homage shirt of 1884, which was when the club was re-named Tottenham Hotspur, to avoid confusion with a rival club from South-West London who went by the name of London Hotspur and played at Syon Park.
There is some evidence to suggest that Spurs used a styalised riding spur as their crest some time after.
The famous fighting cockerel was adopted as the club crest after our second FA Cup win in 1921 and has remained on the shirts ever since. He was initially rather plump but he managed to slim-down in time for our first Football League Championship in 1951.
Metal spikes, or spurs, are traditionally fitted to fighting cockerel’s legs. The cockerel was given a 1920s-style ball to perch on in the mid-1960s.
A more complex crest was adopted for a short while in the late 1990s featuring local landmarks such as Bruce Castle and seven trees which represented the seven sisters who planted them (and who the road was named after). A pair of red lions come from the Northumberland family crest, which has strong connections to the Tottenham area.
A simplified club crest was adopted in 2007 for the club’s 125th anniversary and is still in current use, athough the wording “Tottenham Hotspur” does not appear on the shirts. The Latin club motto “Audere Est Facere” roughly translates as “To Dare Is To Do”.
