MANCHESTER United sold two million replica shirts last season, which goes to show there is no accounting for taste.

Back in the days when shorts were short and moustaches were not just a November phenomenon, fans took scarves, bobble hats and rattles to football games.

It wasn’t until 1974 that anyone had the idea of giving people the chance to wear the same shirt as their heroes on the pitch.

The people responsible were Admiral, a Leicester-based firm responsible for some of the defining kits of the seventies.

Sponsorship was a taboo in those days. The BBC nearly refused to screen the 1976 FA Cup final between United and Southampton because the kit manufacturer – Admiral as it turns out – was on full display.

Pretty soon after that the bandwagon started to roll, and now shirt sales represent a massive chunk of football revenue for clubs around the world.

Such is the demand, the Football Association somehow managed to get (some) fans to pay £90 for the same shirt that England wore to the World Cup finals in Brazil. One ventures to suggest that price has now been reduced.

Considering the importance of selling kits, you have to question some of the design decisions that have been made down the years.

Wanderers fans were once up in arms about the “bra” design of 2008, and never really warmed to its “barcode” successor.

The Adidas designs of last season were an improvement – but Macron seem to have taken one step further, with this season’s offering barely registering on the moan-o-meter; quite some feat, given the circumstances.

But Bolton fans should know that they have had it easy.

Spanish third division side Cultural y Deportivo Leonesa have just released a kit with a tuxedo design on the front.

Italian club Reginna once created a black and red design that on close inspection looked like a male torso stripped of its skin.

The 1978 Colorado Caribous walked out on to the pitch in a beige number...with tassels.

Closer to home, Liverpool and United will never live down their boring grey efforts, which according to Sir Alex Ferguson once contributed to his side’s downfall at Southampton, while Coventry and Norwich City have produced more fashion faux pas than Jean Paul Gautier and all his catwalk mates put together.

The Sky Blues once played in brown. Imagine the bright spark who pitched that idea.

Hull City’s tiger stripe design, Barcelona’s weird orange-yellow fade, Cameroon’s skin-tight puma kit; the list really does go on and on.

But however attractive a kit’s design, that creative genius can always be nullified by a sponsor’s name on the front of the shirt.

Wonga have had their fair share of stick, and we all know what happened with Wanderers and Quick Quid, but they don’t even register in the top 10 of terrible sponsors.

When hard-as-nails Scottish international striker Joe Jordan signed for Milan in the early eighties, I’d love to hear his thoughts when he clapped eyes on the words “Pooh Jeans” on the front of his shirt.

Likewise, the man who sanctioned Sheffield Wednesday’s “Chuppa Chups” kit in the mid-nineties needs his bumps feeling.

Clydebank were once sponsored by Scottish pop crooners Wet Wet Wet, while someone at Scarborough thought it was a good idea to accept an offer from Black Death Vodka.