Football stories

The moments, players and stories that make football more than just a game.

The Socceroos Spew Kit: How a Disaster Became a Classic
The Socceroos Spew Kit: How a Disaster Became a Classic
Australia's so-called spew kit was savaged at the time and is now a cult classic. The full story of the 1990–1993 Socceroos shirt by KingRoo — the design, the players,... Read more...
Every 2026 FIFA World Cup Kit Reviewed: All 48 Teams Home and Away Kit
Every 2026 FIFA World Cup Kit Reviewed: All 48 Teams Home and Away Kit
Strip Tees verdict on every home and away jersey at the 2026 FIFA World Cup — all 48 qualified nations, rated and reviewed. From Japan's sakura masterpiece to Haiti's missed... Read more...
Every Premier League Crest Ranked
Every Premier League Crest Ranked
An opinionated designer’s review of every 2025–26 Premier League crest — from Arsenal’s perfect cannon to Leeds’ identity crisis, and everything in between. Read more...
Socceroos 2026 World Cup Squad Prediction
Socceroos 2026 World Cup Squad Prediction
In January 2023, we tweeted that Australia would reach the 2026 World Cup Final. We named the XI. We committed. Three years, two Achilles tendons, and three defections later —... Read more...
Football Clichés
Football Clichés
From "Park The Bus" to "A Cold Night in Stoke," football runs on clichés — and we wouldn't have it any other way. Strip Tees' Cliché FC collection turns the... Read more...
Football's Uncomfortable Relationship With Mainstream Australia
Football's Uncomfortable Relationship With Mainstream Australia
Football is the world's game — so why did Australia spend a century treating it like an uninvited guest? From the legitimising power of England's cricket tours to the Anglo... Read more...
World Cup Logos Ranked
World Cup Logos Ranked
Every four years, a nation gets to tell the world who it is — not in words, but in a logo. We've gone through all 22 FIFA Men's World Cup... Read more...
Viva La Revolución: Why Ange-Ball Changed Everything
Viva La Revolución: Why Ange-Ball Changed Everything
We started Strip Tees in 2018 because we were football fans who couldn't find shirts that reflected how we actually felt about the game. Ange Postecoglou is the reason we... Read more...
Why Jackson Irvine Is My Kind of Footballer
Why Jackson Irvine Is My Kind of Footballer
Jackson Irvine turned up to sign for Celtic in a Nick Cave t-shirt. That was it for me. A Nick Hornby-style love letter to the Socceroos captain, St. Pauli's heartbeat,... Read more...
Battle of Santiago: The Wildest World Cup Ever
Battle of Santiago: The Wildest World Cup Ever
The 1962 World Cup in Chile produced the most violent match in football history. Police dragged a player off the pitch four times. A referee said he wasn't officiating football... Read more...
Every EFL Championship Crest, Ranked
Every EFL Championship Crest, Ranked
All 24 EFL Championship club crests for the 2025–26 season, ranked worst to best by a designer who has spent an embarrassing amount of time thinking about this. Brutal, honest,... Read more...
The night Australia finally broke the curse: remembering the Socceroos’ historic win over Uruguay in 2005
The night Australia finally broke the curse: remembering the Socceroos’ historic win over Uruguay in 2005
On a warm night in Sydney in 2005, the Socceroos finally broke a 32-year curse and changed Australian football forever. From the trauma of Montevideo to Mark Schwarzer’s impossible saves... Read more...
Mark Viduka’s four-goal masterclass at Elland Road turns 25
Mark Viduka’s four-goal masterclass at Elland Road turns 25
    Twenty-five years ago today, Mark Viduka scored four goals against Liverpool at Elland Road. Leeds won 4–3. Viduka scored all of them. And if that sentence doesn't do... Read more...
The Socceroos World Cup 2026 Squad: Young, Hungry, and Ready to Shock the World
The Socceroos World Cup 2026 Squad: Young, Hungry, and Ready to Shock the World
A new era of the Socceroos is dawning — younger, faster, and built to survive the furnace of a North American summer. With Popovic at the helm, this predicted 26-man... Read more...
My Life in Football: How the Beautiful Game Found Me
My Life in Football: How the Beautiful Game Found Me
A lifetime of missed signs, wrong turns, and happy accidents — how I finally realised football wasn’t something I found. It was something that had been under my nose all... Read more...
China v Australia 1923 — when football broke through the White Australia policy
China v Australia 1923 — when football broke through the White Australia policy
China v Australia 1923: When Football Broke Through the White Australia Policy In 1923, Australia had a law designed to keep Chinese people out. That summer, a Chinese football team... Read more...
Mark Viduka, good feet for a big man
Mark Viduka, good feet for a big man
Mark Viduka was a walking contradiction. Built like a wrecking ball, moved like a dancer. One of the best strikers in the world, and almost entirely unbothered by the fact.... Read more...
Johnny Warren: He Told Us So
Johnny Warren: He Told Us So
Before the Socceroos shocked the world, he told us we would. And he never stopped believing. Read more...
Best Football Crests in Australia, Ranked Worst to Best
Best Football Crests in Australia, Ranked Worst to Best
We judged all 55 professional football crests in Australia and New Zealand — every AFL, NRL, A-League and Super Rugby badge, ranked worst to best and scored across seven design... Read more...
The 2023 Matildas and the Pioneers of Australian Football
The 2023 Matildas and the Pioneers of Australian Football
In October 1979, an 18-year-old Julie Dolan walked the streets of Sutherland Shire posting homemade flyers through letterboxes, hoping someone might show up to watch Australia's first women's international. About... Read more...
Why Cult Heroes Matter More Than Superstars
Why Cult Heroes Matter More Than Superstars
We make shirts about the round ball game — the world game, the one that was called wogball for decades while the back pages looked the other way. But Australian... Read more...
William "Podge" Maunder: The Newcastle Teenager Who Scored The Socceroos First Goal
William "Podge" Maunder: The Newcastle Teenager Who Scored The Socceroos First Goal
At precisely 45 minutes on 17 June 1922, in Dunedin, an 18-year-old kid from Newcastle stepped up and changed Australian sporting history forever. His name was William "Podge" Maunder. Most... Read more...
We're Not Like the Sokkah
We're Not Like the Sokkah
A Richmond fan, a Channel 7 camera, flares on Swan Street, and five words that contain the entire history of how Australia used a word to keep a sport —... Read more...
Reg Date: Australia's Greatest Goalscorer You've Never Heard Of
Reg Date: Australia's Greatest Goalscorer You've Never Heard Of
He scored over 1,600 goals, captained Australia, and was rated the best player of his generation by Joe Marston. So why doesn't everyone know Reg Date's name? Because football in... Read more...
From Russia with Love (and Vodka): A World Cup Travelogue
From Russia with Love (and Vodka): A World Cup Travelogue
It’s hard to sum up Russia in a tidy sentence — partly because it’s massive, and partly because it managed to slap me silly with surprise on an almost hourly... Read more...