What's your number?

English football has an affection with it's old traditions, whether they're good, bad or ugly. Abide With Me at the FA Cup finals. The magic sponge. Iain Dowie.

One tradition that has soldiered on from the earliest days is the numbering of shirts, first used in 1928 in a match between Sheffield Wednesday and Arsenal, with home team wearing 1-11, the away team 12-22. When numbers became more common, they were assigned by position, and continued to do so in the English top flight until the mid 1990s, when squad numbers were introduced in the cup finals of 1993, also between Wednesday and the Gunners (along with names).

Using the classic English system, Arsenal as an example, that'd mean the following line-up:

Almunia

Diaby   Vermaelen  Koscielny  Sagna

Rosicky  Mertesacker  Arteta  Santos

C.Y. Park    Van Persie

Squad numbers have since become an institution, helped by the immense popularity of replica shirts, and the chance to make them just like their fans. You want Carragher? It's 23. Scholes? 18.

But this week, the Carling Cup throws in the clubs with European ambitions, and with it, the chance to blood the stars of tomorrow. And the numbers of tomorrow. Take Arsenal v Shrewsbury on Tuesday night. Arsenal started with just one player with a shirt number from 1-11 (Chu Young Park, sporting 9). The goalkeeper (Fabianski) wore 21, the left back (Gibbs) 28, and the dynamic central midfielder (Coquelin) 39.

 

And so came the substitutions, and a debut for youngster Oğuzhan Özyakup. Sporting number 53. @YoungGunsBlog described him as a deep-lying playmaker - would that make him a number 4 or an 8?

Certain positions are renowned by their number - the traditional number 10? The English-style number 9? Or the Dutch born tricky 53?!

The shirt number is legend. Maradona, Pele, Best, Moore, Adams. Let's keep it that way.