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Another Rangers variation? You can bet on it

20 Thursday Sep 2018

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We hadn’t planned to write articles in the wake of every European away game played by Rangers this season…

When we wrote those words in this article, we did mean them, honestly, but then the Gers went and provided yet more kit intrigue on Thursday evening.

To recap: their first four away games in this year’s Europa League campaign had seen four different kit permutations:

 

Kits against (l-r) Shkupi, Osijek, Maribor and Ufa

We wouldn’t have thought that an away game against the all-yellow Villarreal in the Europa League would be reason enough for a kit-change. If there was to be any deviation from Rangers’ first-choice kit combination, we’d have expected all-blue.

Instead, as planned they wore the change kit in its intended colourway of white shirts, blue shorts and white socks.

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However, there was one key difference from the kit in the official Uefa graphic above:

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The likelihood would have seemed to be that the shirts from the Ufa game, with the unbroken sash, had the Europa League and Respect patches applied to the sleeves and the 32Red logo put on the front.

However, the logo of back sponsors Utilita was present against Ufa but only one sponsor is allowed for the competition proper, while the shirts also had a different number font – the same as that used by Arsenal from 2009-12.

If they’re not the actual shirts from the Ufa game, they are obviously from the same batch and you’d feel that a white outline on the sponsor would work better.

An equaliser from Kyle Lafferty earned a 2-2 draw after they had fallen behind in the first minute. They don’t play away in the competition again until they go to face Spartak Moscow on November 8 – we’ll be waiting to see if a sixth different variation appears.

 

Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur maintain European kit traditions – for now

18 Tuesday Sep 2018

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This week sees the return of the Champions League and all that that entails (see David Squires’ cartoon in The Guardian for more).

For us kit aficionados, there is plenty to get our teeth into – Paris St-German’s new Jordan kits for the competition have proven to be worthy of discussion – while new strips for Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur have raised questions as to whether either or both would dispense with their European kit traditions.

Since the 1960s (but excluding the 1991-92 European Cup Winners’ Cup and the 1999-2000 Uefa Cup), Spurs have favoured all-white in Europe – according to Historical Football Kits, more to do with floodlight visibility rather than a Real Madrid tribute.

However, their new home shirt features a white-to-navy gradient, meaning that it looks odd without the default navy shorts.

Tottenham-Hotspur-Spurs-2018-2019-Nike-home-01

They could have changed shorts at to Manchester United or Watford in the Premier League but opted against doing so – they haven’t worn alternative home shorts in the league for quite a few years, though.

However, their opener on Tuesday is away to Inter Milan, who of course have black shorts and Uefa don’t generally allow shorts-clashes. In any case, Spurs have registered white shorts as their first choice and so will look something like this.

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Likewise, Manchester United’s home shirt features a series of black stripes, widening each time, flowing into black shorts, which are the primary set for the first time.

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Unlike Spurs, United do wear change shorts when applicable, but at Watford last Saturday they wore their new pink away shirt with off-white shorts (changed from black) rather than having their home shirt with change shorts.

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That has raised the question as to whether or not they will continue to wear wear white shorts and socks in Europe, as has been the case since the launch of a special Champions League kit in 1997.

Tomorrow night, the Red Devils play their first group game, a trip to Switzerland to face BSC Young Boys, who wear yellow shirts with black shorts, so a change is needed anyway.

We can reveal that, according to Uefa’s official documentation, they will wear this kit:

Manchester-United-2018-adidas-home-Champions-League-white-shorts-socks-01

However, again according to the documentation, the red/black/red kit is listed as the club’s first choice, so the above may just be a shorts-change for the Young Boys tie.

We will await their first home game, against Valencia on October 2, with interest.

 

PSG and Jordan take a jump in a new direction

16 Sunday Sep 2018

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New things which challenge the accept conventions are always treated with a level of suspicion, fear or outright indignation.

The reception of Paris St-Germain’s link-up with Nike sub-brand Jordan for Champions League kits and associated leisurewear hasn’t all been negative – the reported sales figures are speaking louder than any outcry, anyway. However, some of the reaction we have seen has certainly quibbled with what people see is an erosion of the Proper Way To Do Things.

We’ve always considered ourselves traditionalists in terms of kits – and squad numbers – but we can see why this new development has taken place. We’re not the target market and it’s certainly not going to bring about the beginning of an implosion of the sky.

Let’s deal with a few of the criticisms.

Paris-St-Germain-2018-2019-Jordan-Champions-League-home-Neymar-01

It’s just about the money

Of course it is and it always has been. As our friend Simon Shakeshaft put it,

Barcelona had a dedicated European kit as far back as 1994, so it’s not a new phenomenon.

The colours aren’t traditional

If we were in charge, teams’ Champions League kits would be in the same colours as their home strip, like that Barcelona kit above or Manchester United’s 1997-99 outfit in which they won the competition.

Olympique de Marseille have gone away from tradition with their Champions League kits in the past, while Bayern Munich haven’t been averse from it either, albeit generally only in the group stages.

The PSG kit would be nice in navy, red and white, but black isn’t a huge leap from navy and the vertical stripe, made up of a lot of circles, is identifiable with the club.

Pleasingly, the change kit is a reversal of the home, which is always nice, while the red goalkeeper strip follows that design, too.

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The colours of the crest have been changed to match the non-traditional kit

Arsenal in the 1969 league cup final, their first season with a yellow and blue change kit.

What’s Michael Jordan’s link with football?

Michael Jordan is of course a former basketball (and baseball) player, but he is also a businessman. It is his brand rather than the man himself which has the link.

René Lacoste was a tennis player, but that hasn’t stopped golfers from wearing polo shirts with his famous crocodile brand on them.

Speaking of golfers, Arnold Palmer was a pioneer in terms of maximising his brand, beyond golf too. He gave his name to a new drink which combined lemonade and iced tea and, in Japan, Arnie Arnold Palmer has become a must-have clothing marque among young women.

As recounted in Ian O’Connor’s book Arnie and Jack, when Palmer heard about he was big in Japan, he suggested to his advisors that he make a visit there but they firmly rebuffed that, fearful of the negative impact it might have if the target market realised that the name behind the brand was a man getting on in years.

Paris-St-Germain-2018-2019-Jordan-Champions-League-goalkeeper-Buffon-01Why is there a basketball player on a football kit?

It’s unsurprising that Jordan would use the so-called ‘jumpman’ as its logo.

The reason BMW has a roundel with blue and white quadrants as its logo is because the company orginally made aeroplanes and that was a simplification of the view of a pilot as the propellers turned against a blue sky – the colours doubled up nicely as those of Bavaria.

Likewise, while some people may actually read Playboy for the articles, nobody does so for the rabbits.

How can PSG have Nike-branded kits domestically and Jordan-branded kits in Europe?

Technically speaking, Uefa’s competitions exist in a vacuum, which is why we sometimes see players having to switch numbers for Europe.

The logo is essentially advertising space – they’re not bothered by what PSG have normally, once it complies with their regulations.

Jordan

psgjump

Why is there a basketball players on a modified PSG crest on some of the new off-field gear?

Well, we know why – the resemblance to the stylised Eiffel Tower also a factor – but justifying it is another matter.

It’s the one aspect of the situation with which we’d take issue, but this is the nature of the beast.

 

Midweek Mashup – Manchester City, 2017

13 Wednesday Dec 2017

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When Umbro began to roll out their ‘Tailored by Umbro’ range in the late 2000s, they began to use a phrase which covered the reluctance of teams to wear alternative home shorts and socks, preferring to switch to a full change kit instead.

As you can see in this excellent piece by John Devlin, it mentions how clubs such as Manchester City and Blackburn were opting against mashups so as to preserve “the integrity of the kit”, i.e. not sullying the intended look.

To be fair, City’s 2009-10 kit was a corker, though they were forced to wear their black away socks with the home shirts and shorts in an FA Cup game at Stoke. It was a rare exception to the general rule though, as was the wearing of their 2014-15 sky-blue home shorts at the start of 2015-16 at Everton. One would imagine the rationale for that latter one was that the referee didn’t mind royal blue against sky blue once both sides didn’t have white shorts.

Another instance came in 2013-14 at Arsenal – thanks to Matthew Ashcroft for making us aware of this – and that season at Fulham they had the same combo (N reminded us).

By and large, though, City either wore their home kit in its original form or else changed fully – for instance, Chelsea wore change blue socks at the Etihad last season but City were in their third kit when the sides met at Stamford Bridge.

All of which makes it so odd that City wore sky blue shorts away to Shakhtar Donetsk in their final Champions League group game last week.

Manchester-City-Nike-2017-2018-home-kit-Vapor-blue-shorts-Shakhtar-Donetsk-01

In four of their previous five group games, Shakhtar had worn their home orange and black shirts with black shorts and socks – even forcing Feyenoord to wear white shorts and socks when they hosted the Ukrainians in Rotterdam.

The one exception was in Manchester, when they wore their away kit with black shorts, and then in the final game they opted for all-white.

Even then, either City’s maroon away or very dark green third would surely have been acceptable to UEFA and preferable to the club, but perhaps they only travelled with the home kit and the change shorts as a contingency.

They lost that game 2-1 – their first defeat of the season – but were back in white shorts as they won 2-1 against Manchester United on Sunday.

The great GAA kit-off

12 Friday May 2017

Posted by in Competitions, GAA Kit-Off, Gaelic games, News

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((KPride In The Jersey, the Gaelic games affiliate of this site, is in severe need of an overhaul.

Set up in 2010, it has made a big dent in charting the entire kit history of the counties involved in Gaelic football  and hurling, but last year’s change to Adobe Illustrator graphics rather than MS Paint means that the graphics there are out of date.

There has been background work to update these, and to expedite the process I have decided to have a Twitter competition to determine the best set of kits across the 36 ‘counties’ (the 32 actual counties on the island of Ireland, expatriate sides London, Warwickshire and New York and Fingal, part of Dublin but competing in a lower tier in hurling).

Basically, it will involve showing the jerseys of two counties (first-choice, goalkeeper(s) and change, if applicable) and asking users to choose which they prefer in a poll. For example, these are the four which would feature for Cork – red primary shirt, white goalkeeper and alternative, blue goalkeeper alternative and hooped goalkeeper alternative:

Rather than using the GAA’s own inequitable provincial system, we have decided for a straight knockout open draw, with four preliminary round games followed by rounds of 32, 16, eight, four and two to arrive at a winner.

Following this morning’s draw for the preliminary round, independently adjudicated by the rasher sandwich we had yet to eat for breakfast, the first four ties are:

These will go to poll on Twitter next week, with a recap of the results here before another open draw then for the first round proper.

Wales’s changing stripes and other short stories

28 Tuesday Mar 2017

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Where practical, we always prefer when a team dons alternative shorts or socks to solve a colour-clash rather than changing their full kit (obligatory plug for examples of same here).

Therefore, it was good to see Wales wear red shorts against the Republic of Ireland in last Friday’s World Cup qualifier at the Aviva Stadium last Friday. Having been forced to wear their black and grey away kit against England at Euro 2016 as adidas didn’t provide them with change shorts, the Welsh ensured that that was not the case for the qualifiers.

The red shorts were also worn at home to Georgia, but closer inspection does show them to jar slightly with the shirts and socks due to the green waistband and adidas logo. Believe it or not, they are the shorts from the previous kit with the green adidas stripes removed and replaced by white ones.

Bale 2Bale

If you don’t believe us, then take the word of *the* authority on Wales and (most other) kits, Simon Shakeshaft:

They certainly deserve marks for creativity.

***

And now that we’re on the subject of shorts, we’ll impart some more knowledge too, recently picked up in old match programmes, which can often provide real nuggets of information. From the 1985-85 meeting of Manchester City and Manchester United, we seem to find the year in which the Football League prevented sides from taking to the field in the same coloured shorts – however, according to UnitedKits.com, 1975-76 was the first time that United regularly wore black shorts with red shirts in the league, having first done it in the 1957 Charity Shield.

The writer expresses the hope that United’s poor record at Maine Road when wearing black shorts would continue.

IMG_9681

Unsurprisingly, given how well United deal with such situations, they remembered to bring the black shorts and ended the jinx with a 3-0 win.

***

The Football League still has a rule preventing shorts-clashes, as do the two domestic Cups, while UEFA doesn’t allow them either, even though a shorts-and-socks clash was allowed in a European Cup semi-final as recently as 1991.

When the Premier League came into being though, it was decided that opposing teams could have shorts in the same colour, once the clubs’ shirts and/or socks didn’t cause confusion.

A letter published in the Arsenal programme for the Coca-Cola Cup game against Derby County clarified the situation, though the mention that “all teams must wear their first-choice strip whenever there is no colour-clash” is, sadly, quaint.

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The worst colour-clashes across football, rugby, Aussie Rules and Gaelic games

23 Monday Jan 2017

Posted by in Australian Rules Football, Change kits, Clashes, Football kits, Gaelic games, News, Rugby

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It wasn’t a great weekend if you’re the kind of person who likes competing teams to wear distinguishable kits. On Saturday, we had this…

…and then on Sunday, in Gaelic football’s McGrath Cup, the first half between Limerick and Kerry caused such confusion that Kerry changed at half-time.

It got us in mind of some of the worst clashes* we have seen, across various sports. One would think in the modern era, with nearly every top football club having three kits, that clashes would be a thing of the past, but you’d be wrong.

In 2005-06, Blackburn Rovers somehow forgot to bring their away kit with them to White Hart Lane for their Premier League game against Tottenham Hotspur, whose kit had more navy on it than in almost another other season. Spurs had changed at home to Blackburn at the end of the 2002-03 season when showcasing their 2003-04 away, but that didn’t happen here and the game was allowed to proceed with both in home strips.

Embed from Getty Images

Spurs haven’t been blameless when the away team, either – in 2012-13, their home was all-white and away all-navy, with a silver and black halved third outfit a questionable choice. Their trip to face West Bromwich Albion could certainly have been better dealt with, though there have been worse clashes.

 

West Brom also proved troublesome for Newcastle United on the final day of 2002-03, though of course the blame lies with the Toon for having a cream and navy away when their home is black and white stripes.

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Three years previously, Newcastle had a white away, which obviously couldn’t be worn away to Tranmere in the FA Cup. Switching to white shorts to avoid a shorts clash arguably made the overall look even worse, however.

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While Arsenal generally change when away to teams with white shirts, there are times when teams visiting them will have white. Why Charlton Athletic were allowed to have white jerseys and red shorts at Highbury in 2000 is anybody’s guess.

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Later that same season, Arsenal wore a new navy third shirt at home to Sparta Prague in the Champions League. While the Czech side’s shirt is dark red and a very different colour to the navy up close, from a distance there was what we might term a ‘shade clash’, so much so that Arsenal switched to their yellow away shirts for the second half.

 

At international level, last spring saw Belgium and Portugal both change for a friendly, with poor results.

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Going further back, at the 1970 World Cup in Mexico, Czechoslovakia opted for white as their first-choice colours, so England had to change when meeting them. Their sky-blue alternative kit was troublesome for viewers on black-and-white televisions though, and so for the game against Germany in the knockout stages, England reverted to red.

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Strictly speaking, the meeting of Scotland and New Zealand in the 2007 Rugby World Cup dealt with a clash as the All Blacks changed to grey jerseys, still with considerable black panelling. Combined with Scotland’s shirt in the newest Canterbury template, featuring a lot of lighter embellishments, it was far from ideal.

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This was the 2011 Australian Rules Football grand final, between Collingwood (black and white stripes) and Geelong (navy and white hoops). In the AFL, the home team wears dark shorts and the away team white shorts and that helped here, as did Collingwood having black backs and Geelong white backs. In a fast-moving game, however, confusion was a strong possibility.

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And finally, Gaelic games. As seen at the very top, clashes remain a constant problem, so here are just a select few examples.

Armagh (orange) v Cork (red), All-Ireland U21 football semi-final, 2007:

corkarmagh07

Donegal (gold and green) v Kerry (green and gold), National Football League, 2007:

kerrydonegal-2007

Wexford (purple and gold) v Clare (saffron and blue), National Hurling League, 2006:

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Sixmilebridge (gold and blue) v Clonlara (gold and black), Clare Senior Hurling Championship final, 2015:

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Kilmoyley (green, gold chevron) v Lixnaw (green, gold hoop), Kerry Senior Hurling Championship, 2002:lixnawkilmoyley

* Of course, we say ‘colour-clash’, but…

Fantasy Kit Friday 2016 – a look back

29 Thursday Dec 2016

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Hopefully, you’re aware of Fantasy Kit Friday, our weekly attempt to dress a team up in a historical style different to that which they actually wore. Tomorrow, December 30, will be the final instalment of the year, so we felt it an apposite time to collate all of the offerings together.

While the concept of a weekly edition only manifested itself this year, the idea itself is actually just over two years old, as we road-tested it with four Irish Gaelic games teams in classic adidas:

 

They got a fairly good response, albeit to a limited audience, but other things got in the way of it becoming a regular feature. Even when we gave it a name in April, it was still ad hoc – though, unoriginally, the template was becoming fixed:

It would be nearly a month before another attempt:

We were getting some ‘engagement’, as the digital marketing bods call it, but there was an inherent fear that our adidas bias was unhealthy. We threw it out to the floor, though, and the first request for the now-hashtagged #fantasykitfriday was still from Herzogenrauch, though of a later vintage.

Another break of more than a month ensued – we were learning how to draw on Adobe Illustrator – but this one kick-started a regular weekly flow of higher-quality renderings.

Where possible, we liked to be topical:

And then, occasionally, surreality prevailed (there was a break of a week due to holidays).

At the end of July, work took us to Leeds for a few days, so inspiration was taken from that.

Some of our favourite kits have been the ones that you know could never have happened but still look great.

There’s always time to return to the classic look.

Other times, we feel generous enough to give a two-for-one.

Request are accommodated as much as possible, as it saves us having to think.

For September 9, we conferred with our old sparring partner Andrew Rockall, a massive Tottenham Hotspur fan, to come with a whole suite of Spurs kits and we published them all here. If you can’t be bothered to check, this was the home:

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Some kits can meet opposition from traditionalists…

…and others that you might be unsure about turn out to be well-received.

It’s often fun to use a team’s current (or, in this case, soon-to-be-former) maker and go back to before they had them.

And there are others that are very out there.

This one worked a lot better in our heads than on the screen, sadly.

If we had time, every week would feature a home, away and third as well as goalkeeper kits. Unfortunately, we don’t, but it does make these ones more enjoyable.

As far as we can see, this is the only instance of a team’s own home kit being recoloured.

Looking at these again, one almost has to do a double-take and remember that City didn’t actually have Hummel.

Their rivals switched to Umbro in 1992, but might have looked like this if they did it sooner.

Just after drawing this, we were very pleased with it. Until it was pointed out that Germany’s leisurewear in 1996 was just like this, so that’s probably where the idea subliminally came from.

Another request, more on which you can read about at the wonderful Hull City Kits.

The bias is very much towards the past, so it’s no harm to mix it up every once in a while.

And it’s not all top teams we do either. Any suggestion will be considered.

Collaborate with a friend for an idea, if you want.

But be warned, we can be selfish when we want.

Edit: For completeness, here is the final one:

Things aren’t always black and white

12 Monday Dec 2016

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Like most teams nowadays, Udinese have three shirts.

udinese

Well, technically it’s five if they had enough goalkeeper tops to hand to outfit a full team (something suggested four years ago by our friend Jay from Design Football and done by River Plate recently to honour Chapecoense), but the three main ones should be enough to solve any clash that arises.

At the weekend, le zebrette were away to Atalanta, who wear black and blue stripes. One would have thought that the attractive white kit would be the best choice – especially as teams need little or no excuse to change nowadays. However, Udinese proposed wearing their home shirts – which bear quite the resemblance to Newcastle’s from last season – with the white shorts and socks from the change strip to aid differentiation to Atalanta.

The league approved this, but referee Fabio Maresca wasn’t happy, feeling that the dark backs of the two shirts clashed. With Udinese seemingly having only travelled with their home shirts, a make-do-and-mend solution was arrived at:

Basically, apart from the part housing the number, all of the black on the backs of the shirts was covered over.

The alteration didn’t affect Udinese, who won the game 3-1.

We just wish that Signor Maresca had taken charge of the Milan derby recently and ask them not to wear clashing shirts.

milandery

Were they doing it for Adare?

28 Monday Nov 2016

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Recently, we brought news of how the decision on a new Limerick county GAA jersey had been put in the hands of the public:

The shirt in the bottom-right image of the three above ended up being chosen, and it saw its first game-time at the weekend – but, in what must surely be a first, it wasn’t Limerick who wore it.

It’s the time of year when the winners of the various county championships compete in the four provincial championships as they chase All-Ireland glory early in the new year, and Adare, the Limerick intermediate football winners, made it to the Munster club final against Kerry counterparts Kenmare Shamrocks.

Both Adare and Kenmare play in red and black, so both had to change. While Kenmare had a reversal of their usual jerseys to hand, Adare ended up taking to the field in the green of their native county, showcasing the new shirts (click on image for more):

adare

Unfortunately for Adare, the green didn’t prove to be a lucky charm as Kenmare won by 12 points.