Norway

Home; 2008-10

Q: How many Norwegians does it take to kill a dragon?

A: Well, I don’t know exactly but I do know they can do it.

Back in 2008, the Norwegian Football Federation (NFF) used the launch of this particular shirt to also unveil a new team crest, one which would replace the long-standing tradition of Norway playing with their national flag on their chest. The crest, created by legendary designer Peter Horridge, featured a dragon wrapped around the old NFF logo, inside a modernistic shield which weirdly seemed to have two shields set behind it. Across the top, ‘norge’ was present rather annoying contemporary style which mixes lower and upper case letters but at the same height.

The people behind the new logo insisted it was recognisable as Norwegian iconography, taking its cues from Viking culture. On the other hand, the people who actually buy shirts thought differently and the dragon crest was roundly criticised by Norwegian fans. Two days after the launch, the NFF announced that they would scrap the updated crest, and instead bring back the flag while they reassessed how to update their logo. It would be six years before they would solve that issue, unveiling a new look which managed to incorporate the flag into a shield design.

So with the dragon crest dropped, it never appeared on a shirt worn by any Norwegian team as far as I am aware. It certainly wasn’t worn at senior level. But Umbro obviously had a number of shirts already manufactured to meet the expected demand at the time of the shirt launch. So replicas with the dragon crest do exist, and even though I already had a classic 1994 Adidas Norway shirt, I always fancied adding the “banned” shirt to my collection.

Even though Umbro shirts of this time were fussy, multi-paneled affairs, I think this template is well represented here. The mock collar works, and from afar gives the neck a slightly retro look. Even the white flashes manage just about to not look from the front like the player is wearing a backpack. Though the initial launch was in May of 2008, the old shirt was retained until October of that year, likely because of the issues over the new crest. It was subsequently worn by the senior men for the rest of their 2010 World Cup qualifying campaign, being replaced in August of 2010 by a new shirt for Euro 2012 qualifying.

For the “Dragon” shirt, the botched launch was probably the most exciting thing of its lifetime. In the 2010 qualifiers, Norway and Scotland battled to be the most average team in the group, eventually both finishing on 10 points well behind the table-topping Netherlands (24pts). Despite finishing with a better goal difference, Norway’s four draws and two wins is perhaps more boring than Scotland’s three wins and one draw. Due to being a five-team group, second placed Norway didn’t make a play-off.