How could we forget the outfits sported by Messrs Robbie Fowler, Jamie Redknapp and team-mates ahead of the 1996 FA Cup final.

Twenty years ago, in May 1996, the players of Liverpool FC walked out at Wembley ahead of the FA Cup final dressed in matching cream Armani suits, with blue shirts, red-and-white-striped ties and blue flowers in their buttonholes. Mr John Major was still the prime minister, the Spice Girls were waiting to release their first single, and football had yet to “come home” – that summer’s European Championships on English soil being still the best part of a month away. It was a different time, a different world, and football was a very different game.

Facing Liverpool that day were their most bitter rivals, Manchester United — a team that had done what their manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, had promised by knocking the once all-conquering Anfield club “off their perch”. These were the two best sides in the country: United, the league champions, were a potent blend of proven, battle-hardened winners and hungry, home-grown youth; Liverpool were easy on the eye but bafflingly inconsistent.

Manchester United won a tepid game by a goal to nil, a result that Sir Alex had confidently predicted when he first clapped eyes on Liverpool’s players swanning around the pitch before the game looking like they’d looted the wardrobe of the man from Del Monte. “What would you call it – arrogance or over-confidence?” Sir Alex spluttered years later at the memory of those suits. “It was ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous.” Mr Ryan Giggs, who starred on the wing for United that day, admitted the indignant manager used the audacity of these suits to motivate his players.

The man responsible for subverting the tradition of safe but unremarkable Cup Final suits was Liverpool’s goalkeeper, Mr David James, who would go on to model underwear for Armani. He was one of a number of Liverpool players whose looks and lifestyle began to attract as much comment as his ability with a ball. Wing-back Mr Jason McAteer starred in a TV advertisement for shampoo, Mr Jamie Redknapp married a pop star, and striker Mr Robbie Fowler was rumoured (inaccurately) to be dating Baby Spice, aka Ms Emma Bunton. The perception was of a team filled with good-looking party boys, which was not helped by the fact many were regulars in the VIP lounge at Cream, Liverpool’s famous nightclub, and Mr Robbie Williams was once invited to ride on the team coach to and from an away match.

That Liverpool team would later be dubbed the “Spice Boys”, something that still rankles with those who failed to land the trophies and medals their talent demanded. “We were like any other group of lads,” argued Mr John Scales, a blond Adonis who played in defence for that Liverpool side. “We did some daft things, but there were lots of half-truths… Maybe we did go out in Soho but we never stayed out quite as late as it was made out.” Mr Scales has a point – such antics would now barely merit a raised eyebrow, given that multi-millionaires in their mid-twenties routinely arrive for matches in gold-plated headphones and leave in camouflaged Bentleys.

If the cream suits at Wembley will forever be a source of regret for Liverpool’s underachieving “Spice Boys”, they also marked a watershed moment. Perhaps, in fact, the whole thing was just a little bit ahead of its time, sartorially speaking. Since then, after all, as football has become ever more fashionable, so too have many of its players. They started taking more care of themselves – not least in terms of how they looked, and some became merchandising poster boys. A few, like Messers David Beckham, Freddie Ljungberg and Cristiano Ronaldo, even became style icons.

Of course, those Liverpool players of 1996 were not the last footballers to court controversy via their clothing. Anyone needing proof should google “El Hadji Diouf fashion”. What will always set them apart, however, is that they chose to conduct their biggest fashion experiment on the pitch at Wembley before one of the most prestigious games of the season – and then lost.

Manchester United take on Crystal Palace in this year’s Emirates FA Cup final on Saturday 21 May at Wembley  (KO 5:30pm)

The people featured in this story are not associated with and do not endorse MR PORTER or the products shown