Goalkeeper Equipment Through the Decades: A Visual History

A goalkeeper's kit is the shirt, the gloves and the overall shape that lets a crowd find the one player on a soccer field who is allowed to handle the ball. That look changed for two reasons. The rules first required goalkeepers to wear a different color from their teammates, and later the glove makers put latex palms on the gloves, which made the hands as visible as the shirt.

Two other pages cover the details. The jersey history page explains the rules and the move from wool to polyester. The glove history page explains the palm as a tool, including latex, cuts, finger spines and why foam wears out. This page covers how a goalkeeper looked in each era, why some of those pictures became famous and what a goalkeeper can take from that history today.

How goalkeepers looked in each era

Before goalkeepers had their own shirt

In the 1800s, goalkeepers wore the same colors as the rest of their team. Some wore a cap, but in a crowded goalmouth the referee often could not tell which player was allowed to handle the ball. To fix that, the Football League ruled in June 1909 that goalkeepers had to wear a different color from their teammates. The first allowed colors were scarlet, royal blue and white.

Wool jerseys and the move to green

Green was added to the list in 1912, and it quickly became the usual choice because very few outfield teams wore green, so it rarely clashed. In 1921, the International Football Association Board ruled that goalkeepers in international matches had to wear deep yellow jerseys. That rule stayed in place until it was relaxed in the 1970s. The jerseys of this period were heavy wool, closer to a sweater than a modern shirt, and in wet weather they soaked up rain and got heavier as the match went on.

Lev Yashin's dark kit

The Soviet goalkeeper Lev Yashin is remembered as "the Black Spider" because he dressed from head to toe in what looked like black. His jersey was actually a very dark blue that read as black in photographs and on television. He often wore a cloth cap as well. The 1958 World Cup was the first one broadcast internationally, so his dark kit became one of the best-known goalkeeper looks of the century. The Yashin page covers his career.

When the gloves became part of the look

At the 1970 World Cup in Mexico, Gordon Banks wore an experimental pair of gloves with dimpled palms, and he wore them for his famous save against Pelé. The bigger change came in the early 1970s, when Gebhard Reusch worked with West Germany goalkeeper Sepp Maier to make the first goalkeeper glove with a latex palm. Maier wore Reusch gloves at the 1974 World Cup, which West Germany won, and latex gloves spread quickly after that. Once goalkeepers wore gloves every week, the gloves showed up in every photograph next to the shirt. The latex grip page explains why that palm grips the ball.

Bright colors and printed patterns

In the 1980s and 1990s, goalkeeper shirts moved away from plain green and yellow toward bright colors and printed patterns, and glove brands sold whole goalkeeper ranges. Jorge Campos of Mexico took this furthest. He designed many of his own shirts in bright pinks, yellows and oranges, and he also played some matches for Pumas UNAM as a forward. At Euro 96, David Seaman wore a multicolored England goalkeeper kit in the semifinal against Germany, and the British press compared it to a packet of fruit candy. The Campos page covers his career.

Comfort over fashion

Hungary goalkeeper Gábor Király wore loose gray sweatpants instead of shorts for much of his career. At Euro 2016, at age 40, he became the oldest player to appear at a European Championship, and he did it in the same gray sweatpants. He said he wore them for comfort and for luck. The Király page covers his career.

Light polyester and matching gloves

In the 2000s, shirts became lighter polyester with sponsor logos and bold prints, and glove makers began selling gloves in the same colors as the shirts. White gloves stopped being the default, and black, pink and printed palms became common. At the 2023 Women's World Cup, England goalkeeper Mary Earps wore a pink shirt in earlier matches and a green shirt in the final. Nike did not sell a replica of her shirt, so fans could not buy it. After a public outcry and a petition with more than 150,000 signatures, Nike released limited quantities of the green shirt, and it sold out within minutes. The business side page covers the contract side of a goalkeeper's career.

Why the goalkeeper look stuck

An outfield kit has to look like the rest of the team. A goalkeeper kit only has to look different from the team. That freedom is the reason Campos could design his own bright shirts and the reason modern makers can print bold patterns on a goalkeeper jersey. Cameras pick up strong contrast, fans can find a bright shirt on a dark night and children copy what they see on television.

The gloves joined the look once latex made them worth wearing every week. A pair of wool or cotton gloves barely showed in a photograph, but a bright pair of latex gloves does. That is why a photograph of a goalkeeper from the 1990s or the 2010s is easy to date from the shirt and gloves alone. The way goalkeepers make saves changed less than the way they look.

What a goalkeeper can take from this history

Pick a shirt you can be found in

Law 4 of the Laws of the Game requires each goalkeeper to wear colors that are different from the other players and the match officials. A dark green shirt can be hard to see on a wet night, and a bright yellow shirt is easier to find. There is no good evidence that a bright shirt makes a penalty taker miss, so pick a shirt you have trained in and are comfortable wearing.

Treat the gloves as a tool first

Foam latex dries out over time because sweat, dirt and salt fill the pores of the palm and draw out the moisture that makes it grip. A bright color does nothing to stop that. After each session, rinse the gloves in lukewarm water, let them air-dry away from direct heat and apply KEEPER BALM to the clean, dry palms. KEEPER BALM is an all-natural compound of humectants that keeps the natural moisture in foam latex and restores moisture to latex that has dried out, so the palm keeps gripping like new. Do not soak the gloves in a bucket. KEEPER BALM is for foam palms that can still take grip maintenance. If a goalkeeper cannot use KEEPER BALM because of the condition of their glove palms, then Glove Glu is an option. Replace the pair when that is the right call.

Copy the look, not the superstition

Campos's bright shirts, Király's gray sweatpants and Yashin's dark kit belong to them. A goalkeeper's job is to wear a shirt the referee can pick out and to keep a palm that still holds the ball. If a new shirt feels wrong, wash it and train in it until it feels normal.

If you coach children, show them the pictures and then teach the basics

A bright pair of gloves can get a child interested in playing in goal, but a good stance and good handling are what keep that child in goal. The youth gloves page has more on choosing gloves for young goalkeepers.

Carry a spare shirt in a different color

If both goalkeepers wear the same bright green and the referee also wears a similar color, someone has to change. The 1909 rule was written to solve exactly that problem. A spare shirt in a different color solves it in a few seconds.

What the history shows

Goalkeepers have worn caps, wool sweaters, Yashin's dark blue, white latex gloves, bright printed shirts, Campos's homemade designs, Király's gray sweatpants and Earps's green England shirt. The look changed many times, but the job stayed the same. A goalkeeper has to be easy to see, has to hold the ball and has to start the next play.

Wear a shirt that the referee and your teammates can see, and look after the gloves so the palms keep their grip.