- Thanks to Jay Mansfield for his help
It’s not uncommon for requests for FKF to either ask for what a team might have looked like if they had moved to a manufacturer a year earlier or else if they had stayed with a previous kit-maker for one more season.
The latter trope is what Christopher Bruce had in mind:
The real-life Rangers 1997-98 set of kits – their first season with Nike – is one we really like, not least for its versatility, as shown with this Norwich City FKF, and our logic was that ‘adidas-ifying’ the colour-schemes would also produce a positive outcome.
[Note: in reality, if Rangers had stuck with the three stripes, it’s likely that the 1996-97 home kit would have been unchanged but that’s not much of a fantasy, is it?]
The home uses an adidas design that allows the navy stripe of the Nike kit to be replicated. Crystal Palace had it for their away strip in 1997-98, one which was also seen on the kits of Cork City, Schalke, 1. FC Nürnberg and even Gaelic football side Kerry. One concern is with the complementary shorts design but opinions may vary.
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The change kit takes as its base the shirt of RC Strasbourg – who Rangers met in the Uefa Cup in 1997-98, necessitating an unusual mashup – and we have employed a little bit of licence in having blue rather than red trim on the shorts.
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The reason for this is so that they would tie in better with the third shirt, which utilises a nice design that was worn by Benfica and Kaiserslautern but few others.
Feedback is welcome, along with requests for future FKFs – comment below or tweet @museumofjerseys.
