Blog Entries

That Just Techs The Biscuit

jfh29er@yahoo.co.uk — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Now, I used to be slim. I had a good-ish body, even if my chest was somewhat underdeveloped and my backside, well, slightly overdeveloped by pies and sitting around. But I could carry it off because I'm reasonably tall. I could wear a Small from most shops and football shirts in that size were no problem.

I'm not slim anymore. My old football shirts can just about be shoehorned over my chest breasts but there's a whole load of highly unattractive bulging and stretching that appears arou [...]

Nike Away Kits II - This Time It's Spursenal

jfh29er@yahoo.co.uk — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Nike have a got a cheek. Love them or loath them (it's the former for me since they brought back the Bumblebee) they do exactly as they please.

A couple of seasons ago, to great uproar, they released a white Arsenal shirt. Not the first white Arsenal shirt by any means but a shirt that, if you squinted and, er, looked at it from 200 metres away, would be entirely indistinguishable from a shirt of The Gunners' North London rivals Tottenham Hotspur. Reaction was huge, publicit [...]

Float like a butterfly...

jfh29er@yahoo.co.uk — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Sting like a bee. A nice summing up of a style of marketing and particularly appropriate today as we see the worst kept secret in football design finally made official: Celtic's "bumblebee" away kit has returned.

The strip was originally an Umbro design from 1996-98 and split opinion. Some said it was ugly (they were right) and some said it was inspired (they were right too). As gaudy 90s kits go, it was up there with the best of them. [...]

Winning XI

jfh29er@yahoo.co.uk — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Being a fan of football design, I've always had an idea of my favourite shirts of all time. Not being such a fan of forging a successful career or saving money, I haven't owed all of them. In fact, some of the ones that I have owned I've actually given away. But then, at the point I gave each away I'm not sure I realised how much I'd miss them in the future.

So, I'm left with two shirts (and a half - I'll explain later) that I would consider to be amongst my f [...]

Très Bons Maillots de l'Ajax

jfh29er@yahoo.co.uk — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +0100

"Très bons maillots de l'Ajax" These were the first words uttered by the French commentator Thierry Roland as the second leg of the Dutch side's UEFA Cup tie against Olympique de Marseille at the Amsterdam ArenA kicked off. He's not wrong. Ajax's basic colours and shirt design make up one of the most iconic and aesthetically pleasing strips in football history. Even when playing in Europe, such as on the night in question, and adidas are allowed to add [...]

Vote for Change

jfh29er@yahoo.co.uk — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 21:30:11 +0100

Everyone loves a good backlash. Whether it be against our work changing their staff car parking policy or our government raising taxes, even if deep down we agree with the reasoning we love to get up in arms about the decision. It works in football kit design too.

Recent days has seen the leaking and/or unveiling of several new football kits. Firstly we saw Barcelona's new pink - honestly - away shirt by Nike. It might look orange but whatever the colour it turned many people nauseous green.< [...]

If You Build It They Will Come

jfh29er@yahoo.co.uk — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 10:24:53 +0100

Football stadiums aren't in short supply. If we look worldwide, every large town in every top footballing nation has somewhere for the cream of its players to perform in front of adoring (let's say) fans. A place where inhabitants of the town can go and pay to watch players perform and in some cases, people from other areas [...]

U-S-A! U-S-A!

jfh29er@yahoo.co.uk — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 06:55:29 +0100

There's been some big, big news setting the football messageboards alight over the past few days. Yep, several Major League Soccer teams' kits for the 2009/10 season have been unveiled on FootballShirtCulture.com (Ka-who?). Always a day of note in the football calendar, it really hits home how adidas never fail to entirely i [...]

I Don't Want Le Coq For Christmas

jfh29er@yahoo.co.uk — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 11:38:27 +0100

So here we find ourselves in 2009. Happy New Year. I hope everyone got what they wanted for Christmas; I certainly did. Liverpool top of the league, Chelsea dropping points, Celtic winning at Ibrox (with the bonus of that allegedly adulterous Rangers-s [...]

Football Design - The Battle of The Codes

jfh29er@yahoo.co.uk — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 10:46:46 +0100

Something that should be remembered when we talk about football design is that it doesn't always have to refer to association football. There are plenty of other sports, codes, whatever you want to call them, that come under the umbrella of "football". When I talk about football I might mean any one of them or maybe all of [...]

Feyenoord Fans Get Shirty

jfh29er@yahoo.co.uk — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 13:54:37 +0100

You don't mess with classic design. Or so found Puma when they attempted to stamp their mark on the Feyenoord halves. Revealed this week, the 09/10 shirts featured two stripes, forming a V shape on the shoulder area and a collarless neck design. These features appear to not have been greeted by the Feyenoord support [...]

Liverpool Eases Possessiveness of its Bird

jfh29er@yahoo.co.uk — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 22:26:26 +0100

So Liverpool FC have backed down in their bid to register the Liver Bird emblem as a trademark of the club. This is due to the move being met with not insubstantial opposition and I have to say that I'm intrigued.

Liverpool City Council were preparing a legal counter to The Reds' application based on the fact that [...]

The future's bright, the future's orange

jfh29er@yahoo.co.uk — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 18:56:53 +0100

So Millwall have got a new shirt. And it's pretty good. Little wonder. It's orange.

Some of the best shirts have been orange (or "tangerine". It's the last time you'll see me call a shirt that) and it just makes a mockery of Graham Taylor's dislike of the colour. [...]

Germany 2-0 England

jfh29er@yahoo.co.uk — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 22:31:21 +0100

Ok, so England actually won the game 2-1 and that, if anything, flattered the Germans. But, whatever the British media will have you believe, the game really didn't matter that much. It was a friendly between two teams whose players on the night have both bigger fish to fry in club football and more important international battles on [...]

Put your shirt on Beckham wearing 75

jfh29er@yahoo.co.uk — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 10:38:54 +0100

The Mirror recently unveiled that David Beckham will wear the number 75 shirt at Milan. If this is true then it's no great surprise (though I actually called 45 to continue the Michael Jordan theme) as Beckham's favoured numbers 7 and 23 are taken by Pato and Ambrosini respectively and DB7/23/75 was born in 1975. In fact, and here's [...]

adidas Matchballs - Each a chapter in a life

jfh29er@yahoo.co.uk — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 15:47:35 +0100

In the same way as your football team's shirts can each hold connotations of a period of your life, happiness or sadness, success or - dare we say it - failure, so can the history of matchballs. Since Mexico 1970 and the advent of the first World Cup televised in colour, adidas have always been the top dogs in creating spherical ma [...]

West Ham should have bet on the Bobby Moore Fund

jfh29er@yahoo.co.uk — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 20:21:01 +0100

By Jay

This week, English Premier League team West Ham United are due to announce that they will soon be wearing a new sponsor on their shirts.

The sponsor, SBOBET, is a gambling company currently under investigation following match-fixing allegations. So pretty far removed from the Bobby Moore Fund, which West Ham's fans ca [...]