- Many thanks to Tom Vercauteren of Club Brugge Shirts for his assistance
Having seen rivals Anderlecht win three Jupiler Liga titles in a row from 1993-95, Club Brugge set about trying to stop the four in a row in 1995-96, outfitted by a new kit-maker.
Clad in Puma since the late 1970s, the club returned to adidas, with whom they had been partners prior to that.
Given that, along with Barcelona and Manchester City, Internazionale are one of the most notable clubs never to have had adidas, Brugge’s strips for 12-season stint in the three stripes allowed us to kind of answer the what-if scenario.
The home kit was a solid adidas design, featuring the three stripes around the ends of the sleeves and legs of the shorts, while sponsors VTM got bang for their buck with five logo placements, including above the number on the back.
This was a time in my misspent youth when I used to buy World Soccer so as to keep my copy of Sensible Soccer up to date on my trusty IBM 286 and so I became familiar with names like Dany Verlinden, Vital Borkelmas, Lorenzo Staelens, Frankie van der Elst, Gert Verheyen and Mario Stanić as the club won the title, finishing ten points ahead of Anderlecht.
However, back then I was completely unaware of the Brugge change kit and even now I don’t know of any other examples of the design (apart from a Milan third kit in Fantasy Kit Friday).
Similar to the off-field gear used by Liverpool, Newcastle United and Rangers at the time, it was a smart reworking of the white, blue and black, even though the VTM logos on the sleeves suffered for visibility.
Perhaps the striping was considered overly-aggressive advertising by other leagues, but it’s a pity that such a look didn’t receive wider exposure. Still, at least it enjoyed a winning season with Brugge.
