Switzerland 5

 

Unknown Player
vs. Germany (0:4) | Friendly | 1990 in Germany

I finally got it! I finally got the holy grail of Switzerland shirts! The famous 1990 Blacky shirt. As shirt is all about the manufacturer, a company that created shirts in the vibe of Miami Vice like no other, buckle up for a wild ride through the history of a pretty unique shirt manufacturer that, sadly, is no more.

Somewhere in the mid-1980s, a Swiss real estate businessman and cycling fan, Bruno Schwarz, figured he could challenge the leading cycling wear brand at the time, Descente, and revolutionize the way sports apparel is made forever. Schwarz already was a sponsor and supported of several cyclists, using the sport to advertise for his real estate business, when he founded the company Blacky, named after himself (Schwarzer translates to Black). He set up a production site in Hungary, employing over 200 people at its peak, and started to produce cycling shirts, then tennis, ice hockey and unihockey apparel. 

While do so, he created incredible designs that were all over the place. He used lots of neon colours and just absolutely wild designs. And he transferred a technique that was used in cycling gear to other sports: thermal printing. While most shirts at the time were plain pieces of fabric with added stitchings and heat transfered sponsors, Blacky was the first to use thermal printing to create shirts that went beyond the imagineable at the time. That got incredibly popular, especially in Ice Hockey, where a number of sponsor logos had to applied previously, making it very work-heavy to produce a shirt. Blacky, instead, just printed it and created this:

With his new technique and the production around the corner in Hungary, the brand got more and more popular, especially in Switzerland. It's market share rose enough to become the third biggest sports company in Switzerland, only falling short of Adidas and Pum at the time. 

But we are not here to talk business or ice hockey - but football. During his engagement in cycling, Schwarzer got to know Hubert Stöckli, a businessman that also happened to own a relatively small football club - FC Wettingen. Wettingen at the time had a sponsoring deal with Adidas, but the players hated the Adidas boots, which were of poor quality and kept given them blisters. Thus, Stöckli convinced Blacky to venture into football and get involved for the next season. While the deal was sealed already, Wettingen then happened to have its most successful season ever, qualifying for the UEFA for the first and only time. They beat Dundalk in the first round and then suddenly got to play SSC Napoli, including Diego Maradona.

Schwarzer understood the assignment and quickly made it his mission to use the match to promote his apparel globally, making Maradona an involuntary ambassador, if you want. He broke all rules, by changing the sponsor print on a single shirt: Svensson, the guy who was meant to play against Maradona, did not play with a CONTINENTAL print, but rather with a Blacky sponsoring print. Schwarzer figured that Svensson will be the one in the media, as he will be all around Maradona. The club had to pay penalties to UEFA and to CONTINENTAL, which Schwarzer happily covered. The match ended 0:0, but Napoli won the return leg 2:1.

That worked and Blacky got more popular in football, too, equipping teams like the German top women's football team FSV Frankfurt at the time, and thus making it even out of Switzerland. A niche product, but a very popular one. To further his business, Schwarzer then employed Uli Stielike, the former Real Madrid goalkeeper, and made him his sales representatives for Spain. But quickly, that got troublesome, as Stielike was shortly after appointed at Swiss national team coach. Adidas, the sponsor of the Swiss national team at the time, did not want Stielike to wear Blacky during match and Schwarzer, who still employed Stielike, did not want him to wear Adidas during Switzerland matches. After months of debates, they finally decided that Stielike will neither wear Adidas nor Blacky in public anymore, but keep both jobs.

Still, that all enraged Adidas and they cancelled their sponsoring with Switzerland as soon as they could. The Swiss FA, now missing 400.000 Swiss Franks annually, got in serious trouble briefly, until Schwarzer offered to jump in, paying the same amount and equipping the Swiss national team for the rest of the sponsoring period. And so he did. This is how above shirt ever became reality. It was only worn in 1990, as Blacky had to back out then, as they got into financial issues, finally going bankrupt just a few years later in 1993. This shirt remains the very peak of their existence as a small brand.