Umbro Just Made a Collection Out of Football’s Most Notorious Shoppers

Umbro’s new AW26 collection, AWAY DAYS, is a nod to the Casuals, the football subculture that started in England in the late ’70s and exploded through the ‘80s. English fans travelling to European away games, particularly in Italy, started coming home with designer sportswear nobody in the UK had seen before, Sergio Tacchini, Fila, Ellesse, sometimes bought, occasionally lifted straight from the shop floor during away-day trips. Wearing it doubled as a way to avoid police attention since smart designer gear made you far less identifiable as a football fan than a scarf and club colours did.

Umbro’s collection borrows that Anglo-Italian collision directly. The Trench Coat (£160) is cut in cotton twill with welt side pockets and a self-fabric belt, styled as a tribute to football’s great managerial dressers. The Boxy Long-Sleeve Shirt (£60) prints away-day jersey motifs across a formal button-up, splitting the difference between terrace wear and tailoring. The Pinstripe Drill Top (£80) and a long-sleeve knitted polo round things out, each leaning on Umbro’s sportswear archive but finished in fabrics and colours borrowed from tailoring.

Helene Hope, Umbro’s Head of Global Brand Marketing, said the collection is about capturing everything that happens before kick-off even starts like the moment someone decides to go, and the small styling choices that become part of that whole ritual of departure.