Leicester Tigers 1997/98
It’s one of those peculiarities that every newcomer to rugby has to tap their mate on the shoulder and ask about: why do Leicester Tigers have letters on their shirts?
On today’s match shirts they mainly appear in small print under the crest, sporadically making a return to the back of the shirt for friendlies (the last v Barbarians in 2014), but for those born this side of the century the idea of letters instead of numbers is alien. Yet, for long-time supporters of Leicester Tigers, lettered shirts are not just intimately tied to the traditions of the club but harks back to the foundational years of the most successful era in their history.
Letters were first stitched onto Leicester shirts at the start of the 1926 season – Wales had popularised wearing letters on the international scene, but on the club scene there was no convention at the time. They started with just the forwards (only seven that season, Leicester having adopted the 2-3-2 scrum formation popularised by New Zealand). Lettered from A-G, this would extend to the whole team by 1931. The scum was eight strong by this point, but the club decided the Number 8 would wear G, the back row alphabetically disordered. In the renowned ‘90s era the front row of Rowntree, Cockerill and Garforth, who played 166 games together, would famously be known as the ABC club, legend Dean Richards would become synonymous with wearing G, and J for Joel became the moniker for World Cup winner Joel Stransky.
By the late 1990s the impact of professional, televised rugby meant that Leicester’s letters had become more impediment than distinctive idiosyncrasy. With Bristol also using a lettered system at the time (running the opposite way, to add to the confusion), Harlequins and Wasps adopting squad numbers, and other clubs, such as Bath’s retirement of the 13 jersey, had their own more sentimental peculiarities. With this confusion, the Premiership saw the need for standardisation.
The 1-15 we know today became mandatory from ’98, spelling the end of Leicester’s 72-year-old tradition, but also ensuring the ‘97 shirt became one of the club’s most iconic. Not only was this the last of the letters, but it was also the first year a certain Martin Johnson would wear the captain’s armband as Dean Richards moved upstairs into coaching. Four league titles and back-to-back European cups later, this would prove to be the genesis of one of the most dominant eras in club rugby history.
Luckily for Leicester supporters, the letters tradition did not die a permanent death. With the return of Richard Cockerill as coach he insisted that letters were re-introduced to first team shirts in 2010, albeit small and below the crest, which has remained to this day. With the tradition also kept alive on academy shirts, Tigers still remain tethered to their history.
