2004/05 · Home

A matchworn piece from the Umbro era at the Ronhof, carrying the full portrait of the 2. Bundesliga in the 2000s: the league’s red patch on the right sleeve, T-Com on the left and KarstadtQuelle Versicherungen in blue across the chest, interrupting the shamrock’s green and white hoops. On the back, the name that dates the piece: Laštovka, the Czech Josef Laštovka, number 24, who arrived from Jablonec in 1999 and gave the Kleeblatt six seasons before leaving in the summer of 2005, making this 2004/05 his Fürth farewell. A shirt sweated in Germany’s toughest league, with a shamrock on the chest and a swallow on the back: Laštovka, in Czech, means exactly that, a swallow.

Here at Hoopster this shirt holds a farewell with poetry built in: Laštovka, swallow in Czech, flew from Fürth at the end of this season. Six years of Germany's second division summed up in a bird's name on the back.