We mentioned last week how Shoot! magazine had dumbed down somewhat during the 1990s.
While a redesign was undertaken to coincide with the beginning of the Premier League in August 1992, the decline was yet to manifest itself. One of the features added was ‘What’s New?’, where various items would be assessed.
First up were the Umbro kits for the coming season – the double-diamond supplied exactly half of the 22 teams in the new top flight – and the feature tied in with a combination to win the new strips.
Tottenham Hotspur kept their three kits from 1991-92 and so were excluded; Manchester United were Umbro’s big new addition and had new home and away kits, with a third to follow, while everyone else had one new strip. This seemed to escape the reviewer, who expressed confusion at the disparity in shorts length – this was the season where Umbro went very baggy and retro.
Things to note:
- The Everton review referred to the absence of black players and tall players in the Toffees’ side – a few weeks later, Shoot! had to issue an apology
- Manchester City’s new away looked maroon but was in fact purple. We’ve no idea of what pre-digitial photographic disaster caused one of the models to look like he was wearing a hair-net – and we’re not sure if the answer to the City question was red and black stripes or white with a red/black sash
- Quite a few shirts appeared without sponsors, which was often a feature of Umbro pre-season publicity pictures at the time
- Chelsea’s home kit was shown as all-blue, as in 1991-92, but this was actually the season where they reverted to white socks, which have remained first-choice ever since
- The reference to Ipswich Town trying to look like Sheffield Wednesday with white sleeves is quite dated – the last time that Wednesday had had such a look was from 1965-72
As you say at the top, lots of strange comments in this piece. Very unfair on the Wednesday away kit too, I always liked that Umbro template (Celtic’s green and black being my favourite)