Jersey numbers history

[The Quest For Glory]

Osbourne wearing number 42 in a grand final...
peter Johnson coming off the bench for Parramatta wearing 55..
...on a Saturday afternoon!
the good ol days...

Peter Wynn wore #52 in the 86 Grand Final.

 

[Abacus]

Before professionalism a couple of clubs in English rugby used to have letters rather than numbers.

Like roman numerals?

 

[TDD91]

Like roman numerals?

No, actual letters, mainly Leicester & Bristol IIRC. Leicester gave the forwards A-H & the backs I-O whilst Bristol did the reverse.



Daft as it may sound, if you did squad numbers Super League style, it could bring down the cost of fan jerseys a bit, because there's extra money to be made printing the names & numbers. To get a name & number on the Wigan jersey this season for example is almost an extra 25% (£50/$88.50 -> £62/$109.74)

 

[DIOGENES]

The Leicester Tigers




Wikipaedia explains it all:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugby_union_numbering_schemes

 

[siv]

Kangaroos used letters in the 1930s

But pre WWII players would be given a jersey for the season and would keep that number

 

[Diesel]

Perhaps he played for a Roman-fanatic club and 11 was just Roman numerals for 2

 

[unforgiven]

Perhaps he played for a Roman-fanatic club and 11 was just Roman numerals for 2

Or he was actually a centre and they were using Binary.