TAKE a look at top flight football these days.

All that money swilling around. Players worshipped and adored.

Rewarded with hundreds of thousands of pounds a week.

And it’s easy to forget the humble beginnings of the sport 130 years ago.

Just for a moment think of the football shirt. Once upon a time we called them football jerseys.

Originally thick, heavy, made of wool, crudely dyed and stitched.

No names or numbers on the back. The only way to distinguish which team was which was to put one team in one coloured jersey, the opposition in another.

Out of such practical necessities came club decisions on which colours they were going to wear week in week out. And stick to it.

These days clubs’ powerful brand managers might be able to dream up new, startling away kit colours.

But their primary, play-at-home strips were determined a long time ago in a much simpler time.

The reality of how the decision was taken was often more prosaic than we like to think.

Take our Premier League clubs.

Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal – all identifiably reds.

Everton, Manchester City, Chelsea. Blues through and through.

Newcastle United, black and white.

It’s interesting – and surprising – when you start to delve into the history of club colours.

Apparently Arsenal took the idea of dark red shirts from Nottingham Forest. So the story goes in 1895 a slew of Forest players joined Arsenal’s squad and brought their old kit with them.

Not having the cash in the coffers they now enjoy, Arsenal decided the most cost effective way to acquire a new strip was to put the full Arsenal team in the same colours as Forest.

Tottenham Hotspur originally played in navy blue shirts before swapping to light blue-and-white halved jerseys, toying with chocolate brown and gold before settling on white shirts and navy shorts – in tribute to Preston North End, who were the most successful of the time.

Blackpool’s famous orange strip was inspired by a trip to the Netherlands by a club director in the 1930s. He was so taken with the Dutch national team’s colours, he came back and put the Seasiders in the same strip.

Barcelona’s famous red and blue was pinched from the rugby team at Merchant Taylor’s School in Crosby, near Liverpool, which was attended by two early players of Barca.

Meanwhile, Crystal Palace borrowed their claret and blue strip from Aston Villa. Literally, as Villa lent them some kit in the early 1900s. In the ‘70s manager Malcolm Allison put Palace in red and blue stripes in tribute to Barcelona.

What goes around comes around.