Oh, and Howard should wear number 1.

I share your niggle. On FIFA, I've gotten into the habit of purchasing new players who's squad number enables my team to achieve a bona fide 1-11...

These numerological games are luckily not as hilarious over here as they are in other parts of the world. The Argentine goalie Claudio Fillol wore the number 7 jersey, because the number signifies Virgin Mary. By honouring the immaculate Virgin, he would not concede any goals.

The only number I have a weakness for is 13. When you are up against superstitious opposition from Italy and Spain in the CL and you parade Fellaini wearing 13, they will shit their pants.

Julian – the vision of Fellaini wearing 13 and appearing as some ten foot spectre in the faces of supposedly superstitious European opposition is brilliant.

My own bugbear? I WANT WHITE SOCKS!!

If I'd won that Euromillions £148,000,000 the other week, I'd be on the board now and all of the above would be in place.

Favourite team of the week: Arsenal.

Anyway, back to more important things and my dartboard with Suarez's face on it. Cheers!

As I heard it , had the club bought you when the cards were on the table, then we would not have had any gaps in our shirts!!

I think that's how it would work in old money.....

Baines 3 Hibbert 2 Jags 5 Gibson 6 Pienaar 11 Naismith 7

Mirallas: XI
Jelavic: VII
Barkley: XX

I am pretty certain that the news would spread across the world. There would be bulletins about Everton on CNN and Al-Jazeera.

Kenwright at the press conference:

"Everton, as you know, are an old-fashioned club and I am probably the most old-fashioned and stingiest chairman of them all. In adherence to ancient European traditions and values, we have decided to reintroduce the Roman numeral. An by the way, ladies and gentlemen of the press: you may call me Caesar."

Right Back 2
Hard centre back 4
Creative centre back 5
Right wing 7
Left Wing 11
Striker 9
Second striker 10
6 & 8 centre mids.

My mate was a number 2, because he was shit.

It doesn't really matter though.

Dean - you're not wrong. I could have filled more than one shirt. As I said at the time, I don't do even numbers, but several odd numbers at once would have presented no problem to someone of my... er, stature

Julian - that is a suggestion of genius. Let's do it.

Ridiculous fact: Hicham Zerouali, a Moroccan striker was allowed to wear No. 0 when he was in Aberdeen (1999–2002) as it was his Nickname ‘Zero’. (I got that from this website: http://footballspeak.com/post/2012/04/05/The-Number-Game.aspx

1 keeper
2 right back
3 left back
4 centre mid
5 centre half
6 centre half
7 right wing
8 striker
9 striker
10 centre mid
11 left wing

3 and 5 were my numbers.

Anyway, I reckon everyone would want to be "X"!

My mate was a number 2, because he was shit.

Number 14 in a 5-a-side team. How mental is that?!

It was the first one I picked up. it was a bit like a lucky dip. I know, I could have dived back in the bag to try and find a shirt numbered 2 - 5, but I thought why not live a little.

Plus the opposition had no clue where I played, it made me almost impossible to mark... until I ran out of steam after three minutes, after which point I was very easy to mark.

I know this story isn't quite as amazing as the one about the £3.80 pint of cider that's doing the rounds, but it's still pretty fascinating I'm sure you'll all agree.

Argentina and Holland distributed numbers according to players surnames, which is why Ardiles wore 1. Though you get the odd rebels who must wear 10 or 14.

Italy used to distribute number according to positions so, other than the goalies, the defenders get the lowers numbers first, then midfielders, the forwards. So you have Mauro Tassotti a right back as 9, R Baggio as 10 (the first midfield player - lucky they only had 8 defenders in the WC squad) and all the forwards 19 to 21 (Rossi, Vialli, Schillaci).

Zidane at 5 fucked it up for me.

The Spanish Inquisition.....Nooooo not the Spanish Inquisition

Jason - in my, obviously wonky world, Zidane should be 5.....?

My question is - the numbers are based on the old 2-3-5 formation. These shirt numbers remained fixed even though formations changed and in the end moved to a classic 4-4-2. The centre half (5) moved back into the back four but I have a feeling the 6 rather than the 4 moved back with them, leaving the No.4 in midfield which makes no sense now but thats the rationale.

By the same token no.9 is the classic centre forward number - so thats why Jelavic, or anyone else would have it in a 4-5-1, but in 4-4-2 which number stayed up with him from the forward line in 2-3-5? I'm sure it's 10?

So (going left to right) is it - 1 - 3,5,6,2 - 11,4,8,7 - 10,9?

I think thats right, you might have to swap the 4 and the 6 around....

Or am I digging myself a deeper hole....? : )

Can with bring this back to Everton? I hate it when threads go off topic. (Ha-ha!) If Howard had the no. 1 jersey, would he have dealt with the West Brom corner better?

4s and 6s are interchangable in the back 4, maybe depending if you are the right-sided player (No 4) or the left-sided player (No 6).

The whole extra player making a back 3, as in Parker, Labone, Meagan (2, 5,3), a back 4 came in the early 60s.

By 64, the demands of European Cup football led to Shankly bringing in an extra defender (the young Smith). They weren't the first to do it, maybe the 3rd or 4th. Memory fails me on the precursors (help!), the Number 10 became his by default. Melia, a true No 10 playmaker, had given way to Arrowsmith, a 2nd forward with Hunt (always 8) with St John (always 9) dropping deeper into the as yet un-named Midfield.

By the 66 Cup Final, Harris (6) was in the back 4 on the left of Labone.

The Hurst 10 thing was a result of Everton's obsession with pigeon-holing anybody 6 foot who could play a bit, either a centre-half or centre-forward. He could do it coming up the teams but when he got to the first team he was worse(?) than Vic (career change for Vic??)... who knows, I think shite is shite, get rid, but I dirgress...) So after 30 or 45 mins he would swap with Gabriel, who had a bit of go about him... and lo and behold he cut the mustard at the back.

By the time we would win the League in 69-70, he would have the Number 4 (playing on Labby's right).

Any one got a light??

Melia like Vernon was, for want of a better word, superceded and the 10, the Inside forward position was, due to the changes in the way the game was evolving was ' vacant'.

Harris a winghalf, that is both attacker and defender when required, moved to fulltime defender and Vernon, Playmaker and / or Goalscorer was ( eventually ) replaced by Harvey, midfielder 1.0.

Bearing in mind that these changes were ( for Everton at least )not linear a,b,c, but fragmented and Ad Hoc over 2, 3 ,4,even 5 yrs.

In 65-66 Harvey, when he played was mostly No.10 and by 67 Harris had left for Cardiff and Harvey was No.6 ( Midfielder 1.1)

You can drop 10 in to the AMF role with five in midfield or 7 and 11 inside and 6 to CB with 5-3-2.

That's how I always had it on football manager and I think you'll agree makes most sense.

Ta ta.

My head hurts....

And what's with this "retiring the shirt" crap?

4 & 6 and 8 & 10 are interchangable but all the other numbers are nailed on in a 4-4-2 formation.

As I stated, the role and the number went together, if your were a RB you had number 2 on your back, if you had number 2 on your back you were playing Fullback on the right.

The Squad system with lucky numbers, famous ( 23 ) numbers or just plain what was left if you are the new bloke has pissed off some of the older / traditionalist fans

And btw how long before some one does an Alan Ball in reverse and turns out with, shock horror...Black Boots

No.8 is centre mid per the OP but No.10 can be too in the right circumstances IE you have a Matteus, Ortega, Riquelme level player who commands the respect.

I would suggest No.11 gets the nod upfront before No.8 in the above circumstances generally (although left midfield starts to leave a bad taste in the mouth) but these rules are all subject to generational shift based on the icons of the games as you see it.

The main rule is you don't put the left back in number 2 and the right back in number 3, that's sacrilege.

This is the first thread I've ever started on TW, so I'm chuffed it's got 50 comments. I might do another one, you never know. Now, in the immortal words of Ken Dodd: "Where's me number 9 shirt?" I feel a hat-trick coming on...

Oh yeah, football. In 1982, Maradona went from Boca Juniors to Barcelona for the world record fee of £3 million. What could you get for that these days? A round of drink at Mike Hughes local, and a packet of nuts for his dog, Dixie, that's all. Mine's a Stella cidre, Mike.

No, Derek, I meant when some player or other retires, some clubs "retire" the number on the shirt that he wore. Black boots? As they should be. I wouldn't have been seen dead in pink effin boots.

And while we're on the subject of ale prices, I remember going out with ten shillings (50p) and having 5 pints AND a curry. And then some fucker introduced foreign muck (lager) and Red Barrel and the prices shot up to 2 shillings (10P)

As I started this post, I feel obliged to occasionally drag it back to EFC. So, if we were to play a 2-3-5 now, what would the best team be?

Hmm. The two defenders would be Jags and Heitinga. The three midfielders Pienaar, Fellaini and Gibson. Now this is the hard bit... Five attackers: Jelavic, er... Did I say Jelavic? OK, Naismith. Jelavic - no, I've said him. Mirallas. Er, Velios? No. Anichebe? No. McAleny? No it'll have to be Osman as an outside right. Not ideal, is it? Baines can consider himself unlucky to be excluded altogether on account of the fact that he just doesn't fit in to this 2-3-5 set up. Unlucky, Leighton.

I understand that to mean that that was the first time ever that footballers wore numbers.

Number 3, Babe Ruth, baseball's Dixie Dean and then some. (Those 2 make me so far and away the best selector of teams to root for, I need my own number so it can be retired.) And Number 4, Lou Gehrig. Every hear of Lou Gehrig's disease? Yeah, him. Not only the greatest hitter, bar Ruth, in all the Yankee's illustrious history, but also was so famous the disease he died of is named for him.

Now the slow in mind might still ask, "What's in a number"?

Speaking of baseball, must mention #42.

1 - Southall
5 - Labone
9 - Deane

It seems to me like Moyes has more or less retired #9 as no one has worn it in most seasons since Campbell left. Jelavic is the first player who has been worthy of the shirt since then.

I can't remember if Martyn wore 1 or not, I recall a high number, and if so, I don't think we've had a top keeper wearing 1 since Southall.

5 is a number that a few have worn well in recent seasons, Dave Watson, Davie Weir, Joleon Lesctott and now Johnny Heitinga. But if you are going to start retiring numbers then you do need to tip your cap to Mr. Everton.

Any other ideas?

Isn't it a coincidence that Lou Gehrig died of Lou Gehrig's disease... what are the chances of that?

I'll get my coat.

Can only state, Her/His Majesty's game is doing well over here since the late 19th century.

Two of the games all-time proponents are Yankees, Ruth and Gehrig, numbers 3 and 4 in your line-up. Their numbers are retired and on display at Yankee Stadium.

Beyond that, there's no explaining Ruth. In America, in any sport, there's never been anything like him. Almost as if he shouldn't have existed.

The guy whose record Dixie broke got his 59 goals in the old Second Division (I believe it was the year before).

Been doing a little reading since my last comments.

In America there's never been anything like him. The #3 beyond Ruth is meaningless.

Traditionally, Brazil's numbering mimicked their formation which was 4-2-4. So from right to left: 2-3-4-6, 8-5, 7-9-10-11. And when it changed to 4-4-2 in the 70s you had 7-8-5-11 in midfield. Even today, the CBs would be 3 and 4, the LB would be a 6.

Me thinks if Hibbert wore 9 he would be a lot more adventurous and we needn't have to await this rioting nonsense. The 2 on his back is really holding him 'back'.

Steve, didn't Donovan wear numbrt 9?

Confusingly, Donovan was definitely not playing as a CF.

Satisfyingly, on the other hand, Gibson plays exactly how a number 4 should play. Good number allocation work, Mr Moyes!

James, I always wanted to know, who is the baseball and American football equivalent of Everton? I can't work out who to support. Kinda like the Yankees cos I've been to Yankee stadium but know they are sort of like man u, and kinda like the Chicago bears cos of the peerless Walter Peyton. Waddyareckon.

First time I'd ever watched baseball was when I was working in Denver, I'd never ever had the interest or incling to watch before.

Saw the Rockies play the Braves.

It was an excellent experience but still dose'nt hold a candle to the 'Old Lady' when she's rocking.

Is "points shaving" a common term applied to Gridiron and Basketball?

American sport?

Babe Ruth's records eh! - unexplainable - I wonder.

One thing I must insist on is 4 being used for the holding midfielder - a Keane, Vieira type player. I hate seeing 4 being the CB and 6 used in midfield!

I think we should retire the number 1 jersey. We have not had a single decent keeper wear it since Southall. Both Martyn and Howard both wore 25.

But why this preference for sqeezing all the numbers. Players get a number when they arrive and they are stuck with it (no new shirts = won't fly) until they leave.

Goalies 1-9
Defenders 10 - 49
Midfielders 50 - 89
Strikers 90 - 99

Then we would know where they played from the grouping.

And makes it easier to retire numbers in the future. Would you retire the No9 for William Ralph, Tommy Lawton, the Cannonball Kid or the Golden Vision?