What's in a Scarf?

At an English soccer match in 1930, the only jerseys you’d see were on the players. No one was going shirtless. No one was painting their face. The attire for the crowd hewed toward what we would today call “business”: slacks, collared shirts, ties, fedoras, overcoats. There was, however, one element of everyday dress that connects with a modern day soccer match: the scarf. In this brief clip from British Pathé of a West Ham match from that year, you can see the aftermath of a goal and a few supporters twirling their scarves in the air in a fashion no doubt familiar to anyone who’s been to an MNUFC match.

The kind of striped scarf seen here is a very early marker of fan support. Although the…