The special connection between Glastonbury and football jersey

The Glastonbury festival is one of the most anticipated music events in the UK and beyond. The reason for this is its history, which has seen some of the most important artists of the last century perform on the Glasto stages, but also for its ability year after year to show the energy of the creative moment of an entire nation. Among the links with all cultural phenomena, which do not stop at the arts (theatre or dance for example), Glastonbury has a strong connection with football, which for some years now has brought visitors to attend concerts wearing some beautiful vintage jerseys. From the Premier League to the Serie A, with footballers' names or without, the trend of wearing football shirts during the festival is now one of the main features of the latest editions, also confirmed in the 2023 edition, during which the new Manchester United home jersey was unveiled (on purpose or not). 

The evolution of the festival into a showcase for fans of the style of football jerseys mirrors that of the jerseys themselves over the last decade, which have increasingly been worn off the pitch and have become sought-after items by the fashion-conscious. The blockcore style then blends perfectly with the Britpop style that is part of the imagination and soul of the festival. Glasto's history is linked to British style and indie rock bands, which owe as much to football and terrace style as they do to skinny jeans and Dr. Martens. 

As a cultural phenomenon then, the Glastonbury-football link has taken the form of a challenge among spectators to see who can wear the most bizarre or rare jersey, perhaps with the aim of getting noticed by the singers on stage. Last Saturday, from the stage, English rapper Aitch saw two spectators wearing Manchester City shirts, and as a United fan responded by wearing the Red Devils' new uniform, not yet unveiled by the club and thus having its christening right on the festival stage. In 2019, the video of rapper Dave's live performance had gone viral. For his hit 'Thiago Silva', he had called a fan wearing a PSG shirt with the Brazilian defender's name on it to sing on stage.

In 2023 between performances by names such as the Arctic Monkeys, Lil Nas X, Elton John and Maneskin, beautiful shirts were seen, most of them collected on the Glasto Footy Shirt Twitter account. Among the more than 200,000 thousand spectators some also waved funny flags, such as those (many) dedicated to coach Neil Warnock and even one dedicated to Newcastle striker Joelinton, which read 'God save the king, his majesty Joelinton'. Many well-known faces from the world of football attended the live shows, including Romeo Beckham, Tyrone Mings, Everton coach Sean Dyche and former Liverpool star Jamie Carragher.  

Glastonbury thus confirmed itself as not only a great event for music fans, but once again the centre of the contamination of football with pop culture. At Glasto, football is seen as an aesthetic phenomenon, a language that is used to create memes in the form of flags and to tell the story of the diversity of the audience following the live shows through retro and even novel kits.