Iran 2

Another extraordinary addition to my collection - one with a very special place indeed! This amazing shirt is a matchworn Iran shirt from 1996/1997 and came from an expat Iranian in the US, who again bought it from classicfootballshirts years ago, which means that it even comes with a Certificate of Authenticity.

The shirt confused me a lot in the beginning, as the exact same shirt can be found on hundreds of pictures online, but from a different manufacturer! I have no idea if Saipa and Shekari, the both suppliers of the identical kit, are the same company after all, but they surely share a factory or just copy from each other. Even more remarkable is the fact, that both versions have been used in a single match! On the picture above you can see number 10 wearing the Saipa version of the shirt, while number 6 sports my Shekari version. A truly unique, but lovely, obscurity.

The other fact I love this shirt, is the person who used to wear it: Mr Markar Aghajanyan is an Armenian of Iranian citizenship and helps me perfectly to kill a prejudice about Iran on this blog. I often hear of people that complain about a Mosque being built in Europe "We would never be allowed to build one in Iran". You know what? Bullshit! And approximate 150,000 Christian Armenians live in Teheran for centuries. When I was in Nagorno-Karabakh, they told me "we have excellent relations to only Armenia and Iran". In fact, you have hundreds of cathedrals, monasteries and other Christian buildings all over Iran! And no, Christians in Iran are not minoritised or have to hide. Like Markar Aghajanyan was a Christian Armenian playing for Iran, many are. Actually, the current captain of the Iran national team, Andranik Teymourian, is Christian and "crosses himself" whenever he enters the pitch!
Such wrong prejudices just make me want even more to explore Iran and meet a few of the many wonderful Iranians I came across in their home country soon!