Figure 1.-- The German boy looks to be about 7-8 years old. He looks to be playing in his back yard. He wears a rather modern red jersey with a red-and-white striped V-neck and short sleeves and black athletic shorts. The rather long baggy soccer shorts dates the image probably to the late 1990s. He has pulled up his turn-over-top socks.

Soccer is the only sport in the 2000s for which kneesocks are almost always worn. Although not specifically mentioned, this traditional look probably can be traced back to soccer's European origins (as contrasted with American football, where below-the-knee knicker-style pants can be observed in photos of turn-of-the-century American college football games; hence, even today, soccer is always played wearing shorts while American football pants are much longer). Another reason for the enduring popularity of kneesocks with soccer uniforms is that most all players wear SHINGUARDS: the socks help hide and keep the unsightly shinguards in place, as well as help protect the legs from abrasions and stray kicks.

A California reader reports that in the 1980s boys and girls preferred to roll their socks down instead of pulling them up to the knee. This looked especially bad when they wore shinguards. New regulations that came down from FIFA stipulated that socks must be pulled up to the knee, over the shinguards (which now are required and shirts must be tucked in. Boys now look like players form the 1920s-40s, with baggy shirts and shorts were common. One observer believes that, "Overall it's a sloppy look, no matter how nice the uniforms are." Off the field, boys will wear white crew socks with soccer shorts, or their uniform socks pushed down and the shinguards removed.

This German boy here wears modern sports gear. He has taken his turn-over-tops socks and rather than cuffing them he has pulled them up. We do not note boys playing soccer doing this through the 1960s. We begin to note this in the 1970s. We believe that this is because boys when long stockings were being worn did not want to be seen as wearing long stockings. When long stockings were no longer worn and unknown to boys, some boys would pull up their socks. We also see modern boys in America doing this. I'm not sure why this was done, but think it was most common in the fall when the weather begins to turn cold. This was most common with younger boys. The German boy looks to be about 7-8 years old. He looks to be playing in his back yard. He wears a rather modern red jersey with a red-and- white striped V-neck and short sleeves and black athletic shorts. The rather long baggy soccer shorts dates the image probably to the late 1990s. He has pulled up his turn-over-top socks. I think he is wearing white athletic shoes also, perhaps with velcro closings.

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Created: October 30, 2001
Last updated: February 22, 2004