Home, away, third: reading the archive labels

A good archive should help you find your way without pretending to know more than its sources support. Lijersey groups visual references by club, season and broad design category.

Labels are starting points

Terms such as home, away and third follow the wording in the source collection. A season label does the same. These make it easier to compare related entries, but they are not independent confirmation of an issue date, a particular match or a shirt’s ownership history.

Where a source includes an earlier design reference, we group it with retro references. The label refers to the design being referenced; it does not identify the manufacturing date of the item in a photograph.

Compare the details you can see

Use the available views to look at colour placement, collars, sleeves and the relationship between a shirt and the rest of a kit. If a detail is not visible, it is better to leave the question open than to fill the gap with a guess.

Leave room for corrections

An archive becomes more useful when its descriptions can improve. If you believe an entry needs a different club or season label, send the record link, explain the change and include a source that helps establish the point.

We welcome that kind of contribution. It turns a collection of images into a shared practice of looking carefully.