2012/13 · Home

Long sleeves, wide Glasgow-style hoops and a gothic crest bearing 1919: this Nike belongs to the cycle in which the brand dressed VfB Lübeck, between 2009 and 2013, the Regionalliga Nord years between the two insolvencies. On the chest is not the first team’s sponsor but the local McDonald’s announcing “6x in Lübeck”, the city’s six restaurants. On the back, instead of a name, the club itself: VFB LÜBECK above the 8.

Those details point to a squad shirt from the youth ranks or the reserve side rather than the shop replica. Two dedications in blue pen, one of them “Für Timo”, tell that it passed through the hands of someone at the club before arriving here, even if the authors remain unidentified.

Here at Hoopster, this is the shirt of a club trying to get back on its feet, signed by someone who sweated in it.