Women's football: 'The Missing Shirt' tackles gap in Lionesses history

As England women's national football team, nicknamed the Lionesses, hit the headlines in the Women's Euro 2025, ex-Lioness Claire Rafferty collaborated with Foudys, the world’s first dedicated retailer of women’s official sports merchandise, on a different challenge - a historic lack of football clothing designed for women. Until as recently as 2019, the England women’s squad played in men’s shirts, often altered by the players themselves to compensate for the undesirable fit. As a result, fans of women’s football and/or the associated merchandise, have no previous women’s kits to wear or collect. This campaign, titled 'The Missing Shirt' explains the aim to redress the omission with a retro football shirt that commemorates players present and past. As reported by Creative Review, the design by Hattie Crowther features the names of women who played from 1984 to 2019 without a dedicated England kit printed down the sleeves, while a blank crest in the middle of the shirt is topped by the words ‘Unsupported. Unaffiliated.’ Women's football teams were already emerging in the late 19th century, In 1921 the Football Association (FA) in England banned the sport on officially recognised pitches in a move generally attributed to encouraging women back into home-based roles after World War 1.The ban was lifted 50 years later, in 1971, and the women's game currently enjoys significant popularity, and increasing media coverage. Google's AI Overview says that the sport's global market is predicted to surpass $2.35 billion in 2025, and: "The Women's Super League (WSL) in England has seen a notable rise in revenue, reaching £65 million in the 2023/24 season, with each of the 12 clubs earning over £1 million for the first time".

Keywords: Foudy's 'The Missing Shirt', Lionesses collectors' kit, women's retro football shirts, women's football merchandise , English women's football, Claire Rafferty, Truant