A mixed bag today – one could say that the demand for FKF requests is such that we have to treble up…or that we took our eye off the ball to the extent that there is now such a backlog.
Either way, there are some interesting suggestions, spanning a time-frame of more than three decades, and we will address them chronologically.
First up is Mick Muldoon, who wanted to see a Manchester United version of Admiral’s famous ‘tramlines’ style.
It’s worth noting that Admiral themselves referred to it as the ‘hourglass design’ in a tweet showing the United version in tracksuit form and seeing that almost made Mick recant his idea.
However, the stripes on the tracksuit went all the way down the arms and legs, which made for a bit of overkill. In addition, most examples of tramlines kits had the same colour shorts and socks – United obviously do not and so we reversed the black and white tramlines to allow for a better flow.
Next up in Swin Dub, a Swindon fan exiled in Dublin who has a site showcasing the shirts of the Robins and Irish sides UCD (men) and DLR Waves (women).
He asked for a 1994-95 swap of the Swindon and Oxford United shirts. The Robins had the same Loki-produced kit as they had had in the Premiership in 1993-94, featuring a marble-like effect, while Oxford’s had the club crest repeated across the chest in a tonal fashion.
Oxford also had contrasting sleeves and when we asked Swin Dub if white or green would be better, he replied: “Green would look crazy 90s and would probably be the most green ever on a Swindon home shirt, but why not.”
Why not, indeed. An extra detail, probably hard to discern, is that Oxford’s kits were produced in-house and branded as Manor Leisure, after the Manor Ground. Rather than go with County Leisure for Swindon, it’s Robin Leisure, featuring a stylised bird.
The final one for today is a ‘one more year’ request, which are always popular and you can probably guess which club MrMark79@ArsenalAnd80sMusic wanted to see.
Arsenal switched to Puma in 2014 after 20 years wearing Nike and Mark wished to see how they might have looked if they swoosh had remained.
Given that Nike’s last three home kits were all similar with crew necks and armscye sleeves, we have repurposed the Brazil kit from that year’s World Cup, with its unusual-but-not-unattractive collar and raglan sleeves, for the home.
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The away is based on the Netherlands change kit and its grading effect – we did try it with the yellow changing to blue but it looked too dirty.
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The 2014-15 season was the first where Nike adopted a blanket third-kit design for its major contracts (see the FKF from a fortnight ago) and Arsenal’s real third kit colours from that season are used.
As always, feedback is welcome, along with requests for future FKFS – comment below or tweet @museumofjerseys.
