Stories about team kit were a staple item. Horden Colliery Welfare, as I am sure you will recall, sorted themselves out with £1,500 ($2,000/€1,700) worth of sponsorship from a local taxi firm whose name was proudly emblazoned across the players' chests - Menace. 

The move appeared to have a suitably intimidating effect on their first post-Menace opponents as Horden ended a run of three defeats…

The power of kit. An outfit called Pat Nevin's Haircut FC, who played in the Edinburgh Saturday League, proudly sent the paper a picture of their team shirt - a polka-dot beachwear affair in pink and blue. 

For another reader, that stirred memories of Hamilton Academical's match in the late 1940s when the home side amazed their red-and-white-scarfed supporters by stepping out in French grey and maroon quarters. The reason being that they were being paid a visit by the Duke of Hamilton, whose racing colours these were.

The post-punk band Half Man Half Biscuit - originally baked in Birkenhead, Merseyside - were into their football, as tracks such as "Bob Wilson - Anchorman" attested. They got regular mentions, not least for another of their songs - "All I Want For Christmas Is A Dukla Prague Away Kit".

The reason this kit got such a special mention was its sumptuous blending of gold and maroon. Although, as has been pointed out, maroon and amber was a combo adopted by English club Bradford City from 1903 onwards – colours which corresponded to The Prince of Wales' own West Yorkshire Regiment. The club used its barracks as changing rooms until 1908.

This week in London, the latest manifestation of this rich tradition occurred in the form of an exhibition entitled "The Art of the Football Shirt", part of the Jacket Required trade show in Shoreditch.  The work was assembled by Neal Heard, who has lovingly assembled shirts both gorgeous and garish from the late 1980s onwards and has also put together "The Football Shirts Book - The Connoisseur's Guide" which will be released on Amazon on September 7 this year.

Among the items, as you might expect, is the red shirt adopted by England as they won the 1966 World Cup at Wembley after they had lost the toss with West Germany over which team would be able to wear its usual white.

Also featured is the virtually cubist effort in white and orange worn by The Netherlands side containing the likes of Marco Van Basten and Ruud Gullit, which won the 1988 European Championships in such masterful style.

And there is what Heard describes as "probably the most famous shirt of all time, and definitely the most romantic" - the yellow and green trim worn by Brazil as they won at the 1970 World Cup in Mexico. As an image, it is a shorthand for Pelé heading the opener against Italy in the final, for Rivelino bending free-kicks around the wall, for Jairzinho slaloming past successions of defenders (but not Bobby Moore).   

For football supporters of a certain age, a glimpse of a team shirt can suggest a time past as swiftly as a snatch of music.

The association can be from the point of view of a spectator or a player. But it is always powerful. West Ham fans love the sky blue away kit with two horizontal claret hoops that was used during the late 1960s and early 1970s. They do not quite like it. They love it.

Manchester United fans - and, by all reports, the then club manager Alex Ferguson and all his players - hated the grey shirt that was briefly required for away trips in 1996, most notoriously when United went 3-0 down by half-time at Southampton. At that point Ferguson insisted the tops got jettisoned in favour of more colourful versions, citing the fact that his players had complained they had been unable to "pick each other out". Ferguson did not dislike the shirt. He hated it.

Anyone who has played football at whatever level will have similarly strong opinions. In my teenage years I played for a youth side that wore the then AC Milan/Man City away colours of vertical red and black stripes. Loved it. Then we got a new manager, with new ideas - and a new, heavy kit in purple and yellow arrived. Hated it. And we were never quite the same team again…

My favourite team shirt of all time is unique. 

It was bought for me for Christmas in 1969 by a kind aunt who did not know much about football but knew I was a mad-keen player and West Ham follower. 

Unfortunately, the lack of pale blue elements on the cuffs and a claret line on the collar meant it was a Burnley shirt. 

I am ashamed to recall that I failed to mask my disappointment. A few days later the shirt was dispatched to my Nana, who seemed to spend half her life sitting in front of her Singer sewing machine. 

It returned - with two pale blue bands on each cuff, and a trim of the claret from the bottom of the shirt now located around the neck. 

Plus there was a white number six - Bobby Moore! - neatly sewn on the back.

Oh, the magical power of kit…