Ray Hyland is a man of incredible patience.
It’s coming up on two years since he floated the idea of a Matchwinner retrospective and he wrote the articles examining the firm’s output in jig-time – the only thing holding up the project has been our tardiness in drawing the kits.
Parts 1 and 2A, among other Matchwinner-tagged articles, can be accessed here and Part 2B is close to being completed. Of course, Part 2B isn’t even the really difficult one, that’ll be the joys that Part 3 has to hold.
Anyway, we digress. As part-payment for the delay we’ve forced Ray to endure is today’s FKF. It’s not far off three decades since the Netherlands wore adidas but it’s a partnership that holds a lot of nostalgia for people of a certain age and the 2010 mix we did last year proved popular.
Ray’s idea was to go back a bit further, to 1996. This was a time when Lotto were making the colours of the Dutch flag more of a feature on the country’s shirts and the adidas stripes allow for a France-like tricolour incorporation.
The template chosen by Ray was that used by Newcastle United for their 1996-97 change kit, with Olympique Marseille also appearing in such a design.
The 1996 Netherlands second kit feature more orange than previous offerings had.
This made for something of an overall clash against Switzerland, who had a similar Lotto design.
We’ve gone for the France/Rangers home design of the time – it means that the Dutch flag is going vertically rather than horizontally, but it’s representative of a windless day.
Your feedback is of course welcome, along with suggestions for future FKFs. Comment below or tweet us @museumofjerseys.
The away looks fantastic.
Che meraviglia!