Six of the worst Scotland football strips

COSTA RICA KIT: It’s Italia 90 and the Tartan Army travel with hope that Scotland can finally break the group stage hoodoo. But in Genoa, the team take to the pitch in horizontal yellow stripes – and they are left horizontal after 90 minites of hell against Costa Rica. The strip got ditched after the World Cup but, sadly, the fashion blunders continued...

THE SLASH KIT: Who came up with this design? A detective? Scotland appeared as the only football team ever to take to the field wearing a strip that was apparently inspired by a grisly murder victim. There was even a matching “blood” patch on the left side of the shorts. This “slashed” appearance lasted two years between 1991 and 1993.

BUBBlEGUM/SALMON KIT: Imagine the meeting where they came up with this: “Ok we need a new strip to get away from the fatalism of the last effort. We need something that the fans will want to buy, the players will have pride pulling on and our enemies will quiver at the sight of. Any ideas?” “Bubblegum pinstripe?” “Sounds perfect!”

LIGHTNING KIT: Had this design come five years later, it would have been assumed that the inspiration came from those weird screen savers that used to come with the original Windows computers. Scotland actually travelled to Euro 96’ with this as the second kit. Thankfully we were able to wear blue for all three group ties before heading back north.

HEARTS KIT: Immediately disliked by anyone outside a two-miles radius of Gorgie, Larbert or Arbroath, Scotland only wore this away strip once, with disastrous results. In a campaign where our brave heroes managed to defeat France (twice) and Ukraine, they saved their worst performance for a 2-0 away defeat to Georgia late on.

SALTIRE KIT: Not content with the symbol appearing in the crest, we then decided to emblazon the saltire right across the chest of each player. A forced attempt at patriotism it may be, but this was the strip that James McFadden wore when he scored that wonder goal in the Parc des Princes and so it shall always invoke happy memories for us Scots.