Something a bit different for today’s Fantasy Kit Friday in that they’re all a recolouring of kits from a club’s history.
The request comes from Tony Sealey, who is a Tottenham Hotspur fan but isn’t (we hope) trolling when he asks:
I know it’s crossing the line for me, but how about a series of reversed Arsenal kits of white shirts with red sleeves, say one from the ’60s/70s, an adidas ’80s, a Nike one and, now a modern adidas one.
As a child supporting Arsenal, a white change shirt with red trim (as opposed to red sleeves) was something I wanted to see, but it wasn’t realised until 2007. The lack of a straight reversal was probably never considered due to overall clash issues – the opposite of the Arsenal-Charlton game in 2000, effectively – though in the summer of 2007 such a kit was rumoured and indeed fakes were produced. Such a kit could be used in those games away to teams in blue shirts and white shorts where Arsenal tend to change.
Apparently, Arsenal are set for a white change kit in 2020-21, whenever that happens. It’s possible that black will be an accent colour, so we can anticipate the howls of protest from those who feel it looks like Spurs. Of course, it’s unlikely they will come from people who are aware that Arsenal did have white change shirts with black shorts, once upon a time.
Anyway, we digress – as Tony said, these are fantasy kits! Here they are:
If you have a request for a future FKF, comment below or tweet us @museumofjerseys.
Minus the Nike that was a template that i dislike a lot, all of them are nice but it feels strange, maybe due that brain says the order is not correct.
Hmmm not really a fan. The older ones definitely look better, perhaps because I’m more familiar with the newer ones and therefore the effect is more jarring.
As for the numbers, did you intentionally pick ones that aren’t really associated with those kits? van Persie joined in 2004 but isn’t really remembered as a famous player to wear that kit. And of course for this year’s kit, Koscielny left before the season kicked off and the no. 6 shirt has yet to be reassigned.
Ha, good spot Charlie but no, I just pick numbers at random! Number 2 would have been a better choice for 2004-05 if I was going down the unused route
Interesting as always. Slightly inspired by this, my Fantasy Friday request would be…… As a Southampton fan of a certain age, I have a love of our early 80s Patrick kit, especially the away. I loved that it was exactly the same template design as our home. However, like all Saints fans, I’d prefer to see our away kit being yellow and blue. So was wondering if it was possible to see one of our 1980-85 Patrick, 1987-89 Hummel ‘Denmark”, 1993-95 Pony, and/or 2010-11 Umbro “Peru” home kits transformed into away kits by using yellow and blue. If it helps, yellow tends to be the main colour, and black features as a tertiary colour. Many thanks.
Cheers David! I’ll put your request on the list – it’s kind of like the opposite of this https://museumofjerseys.com/2020/01/10/fantasy-kit-friday-southampton-away-special/
Re your Cork City question on FB, it’s funny but the change received little or no media attention at the time, perhaps because City had almost always had red aways and sometimes wore them at home. It’s thought that they were trying to capitalise in Cork county’s association with red and white through Gaelic games, though there was a rumour that it was the brainchild of a director who was a Manchester United fan (black socks were not used, however).
Thanks Denis, and thanks for answering the FB message about Cork. I was interested in the reasoning, because I know how keenly all football fans hang onto their colours. Obviously using the county colours would help win people over, and would mean a lot more in Ireland compared to over here, but strange that it was not a bigger issue at the time. Thanks too for the Saints link from January – I do remember seeing it and being grateful to see something about my team, but also thinking they were quite “Watford-ey” – obviously, playing around with colours will always make our own kits look like those of another team. And also continued thanks for this excellent site – whether it’s the smaller Fantasy Friday posts, or the more in depth look at keeper shirts, it’s full of some great and interesting info, without it becoming obsessively uber-nerdy.
As an Arsenal Fan I like this a lot i think the modern one looks the best. What my Fantasy Friday request is what would all the possible change kits be that Arsenal could have used in the season but ( annoyingly) chose to play in a away or alternate. Thanks anyway i think you guys are doing a great job at keeping everyone entertained.