Design Football Memebrs Blog

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 around my midriff. The backside that was large is now even larger and forms a shapeless trinity with my inflated hips and legs. Where once I could squeeze into size S shorts that left little to the imagination, now I'm clinging on to M with dear life.

I'm overweight. By a stone and a half at the last check. I'm approaching thirty. These things happen. But why oh why did adidas choose now to start producing their shirts in Techfit?!

You see, a long, long time ago there was a sportswear company called Kappa. They came up with the Kombat range. Tight shirts that hugged the body and accentuated all those lovely contours. They wouldn't have looked great on me but I ran the London Marathon two years ago so back then I could have carried them off.

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, publicity was even more huge, sales, well, let's have a think...

Next season, Arsenal will wear white away from home (or "3^rd") again.  But this time the full kit won't be a white and redcurrant pseudo-reversal of their home colours.  No, this time the shirt has only hints of colouring and the shorts will be slate grey (I won't indulge whatever Nike have called it).  Slate grey... time to get squinting again.  Surely that'll look a little bit too much like a dark blue?  Like Tottenham Hotspur wear.  Y'know, like Arsenal are wearing their biggest rivals' whole kit in away matches.

For the record, the shirt's classy, it does have redcurrant pinstripes, it has a good cut and a proper collar.  The team has actually worn the full kit too and it doesn't necessarily make you think of Spurs right away.  But isn't there a principle here?

The fact is, teams and manufacturers alike need to rotate kit designs and that involves using new colours each season for the change strips.  They make kits to sell and if the white has returned then it means that last time it sold well.  Did it and does it please the diehard guys in the flatcaps whose visible affiliation comes in the form of a 25-year-old bar scarf and a pin badge?  No, but their controlled-price season ticket (if they still renew it) is not a prime example of how Arsenal pay back banks or pay Arshavin's wages.

 

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.  Luminous and cluttered, the beauty was in the basic idea of having a hooped away shirt that hinted at green and had an acceptable alternative to white.  The finished product bore a passing resemblance to a common flying insect and the Parkhead faithful had something to wear that was a departure from the usual uniformity.

Ever since, and building momentum, the Celtic fans have hoped for and requested some kind of a return to the Bumblebee.  There has even been a petition!  As Umbro had designed the kit, once Nike took over hope seemed to be fading but soon Umbro were to become a wing of the American giant and doors reopened.  The mock-ups have been doing the rounds for a few months but the finished article has arrived and few are disappointed.

 

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 favourites of all time.  The Olympique de Marseille 3rd/European/International/Superfluous shirt from 2007/08 and the 06-08 red England away.  Masterpieces. 

The adidas Golpe-styled l'OM shirt blew my mind despite being orange and it may even be my favourite of all time, whilst the Umbro England change shirt hangs in my wardrobe in both long and short-sleeved versions and is truly the last great Three Lion away.  Great use of gold, nice big crest and if Umbro want to move towards tailored fits then they could do worse than to take a look back - what a great cut!

"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 their stripes to the sleeves (what is is about the Dutch and adidas stripes?) the white and red simple image evokes the history of this great club.

Special mention should also go to the ArenA itself.  A great stadium and the shirt-coloured goal nets are surely the coolest in history - especially when bulged with an extra-time Marseille winner!

So all in order then?  Ajax at home wearing their usual strip, in equal parts traditional and beautiful, l'OM - whose colours are white and blue - rightly in a change strip of gold shirts with black shirts.  But why were those the kits worn the previous week when l'OM were the home side?

Blame can possibly be directed at Uefa's door.  The current stipulation is that any team participating in European competition should have three playing strips.  This generally results in clubs arranging with their sportswear manufacturer, or "technical sponsor", a home kit, a 2nd or away kit and a "European" or "International" third outfit.

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.

adidas were then quick to get in on the act, even if it was unintentional - make up your own mind - as the world got to see the template-happy kits of Ukraine, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and Chelsea and found they were of the same style as examples from the upcoming MLS season. That batch of strips was far from universally well-received anyway and do top European sides not deserve completely bespoke outfits?

Also witnessed have been the new Russian designs which, despite having the "rugby on bicycles" template complemented by flattering colour-schemes and traditional crests, were panned by many, and the randomly white-collared Milan shirt. The latter is a traditional shirt which doesn't keep to a new modern fit-for-all style but, again, people aren't unanimously in support.

The reaction to these shirts has been enormous. Even German newspaper Bild got their two penneth in and whilst there were encouraging comments by some, the overall common consensus was that they fell short. Damning.

But then it stepped up a notch. The new England shirt was leaked. Modern, ergonomic, futuristic, subversive, condemned. Not for a long time have I seen a shirt face so much in the way of opposition. If you have a couple of days spare then drop by footballshirtculture.com and read through the comments.

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 incorporate into the playing wear of the forthcoming season a club's history and tradition. Or lack thereof.

Going through the shirts, firstly that of Canadian representatives Toronto FC, we see a futuristic design with a highly prominent sponsor and a crest typical of the league, apparently straight out of The Hurricanes. If these home and away shirts had any more features they'd be James Bond cars and whilst they resemble decent training tops they're not gonna get connoisseurs drooling (not that I can necessarily claim to be that).

The rest of the shirts have similarly bizarre constructions. Houston Dynamo had done ok previously with their Marseille orange third shirt ripoff but now with a new odd rotated collar and stripe design (I'm not gonna try to describe it, check it out) and one alternate coloured sleeve there's just too much going on. The template actually works well with a proper collar on the new Suwon Samsung Bluewings kit and may be a triumph on upcoming European teams' offerings but when coupled with the starry night cereal packet crest it's something of a horrorshow.

We'll brush over newbies Seattle and also Colorado. Their kits are ok. The badges will still leave traditionalists cold but all in all those designs are towards the top of a disappointing scale. Which is more than can be said for New York Red Bulls' adventurous number. If anyone fancies a new take on the triathlon that includes rugby alongside swimming and cycling then this is the kit for you. Incidentally, are they called New York Red Bulls or Red Bull New York? Try humming "Red Bull New York, New York Red Bulls" to the Pompey Chimes tune. Ha! Now you're in my purgatory too! Try getting that out of your head.

 

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 them. I'm lying of course. When I say football I mean the game where the prime donnes stick the pig's bladder in the onion bag and get paid squillions to do so, but let's just pretend for a while...

A few weeks ago, the Milan football - sorry, association football - team met up with the All Blacks, New Zealand rugby t- sorry, rugby football - team at Milan's Milanello training complex. Aside from the fact that Milanello is itself a triumph of architectural and technical football design, the adidas-arranged meeting reminded us of the classic kit designs in both football and rugby (I got sick of it). The timeless black and red stripes of Milan versus the imposing all black of, er, the All Blacks.

Obviously the modern day kits are covered in insignia and engrained with performance technology but, particularly in the case of the All Blacks, the basic and unchanging principles of the design are still the priority. Other than adidas, and at adidas's behest, no sponsor adorns the Kiwi shirt and the three stripes are surrendered in exchange for an association with one of sport's most recognisable and iconic outfits.

Rugby in general, for me, has some of the most wonderful shirts which rival some of football's most famous. Comparitively speaking, rugby union has only recently become a professional sport and this allowed the most beautiful and unsullied kit design to endure through to recent times. Most have finally been replaced with supremely functional sportswear but the classic white collar on the plain green of Ireland and red of Wales were prime examples. For me, a Cotton Traders retro shirt will always be preferable to the current styles.

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 supporters.

As things stand Puma have stated they will listen to the criticism (mainly in the form of emails and forum posts.  So they'll probably read it rather than listen to it) and then come up with something better.  Seeing as the kits were revealed six months before there's any chance of anyone wearing them they've got plenty of time.  It does make you wonder why they did unveil them so early.  Possibly because they knew there would be a backlash and wanted to see if it would be grave enough to require them to re-design, possibly to build interest and anticipation of the release date or maybe, just maybe, the shirt was never going to be used and was always intended to act as a comparison to prove the actual shirt is worth the €60-70 it'll no doubt retail for.

But let's not be so cynical.  Instead let's enjoy the victory of the fans over the might of a major sportswear manufacturer.  Money generally calls the shots in football and just recently the example of Arsenal losing their white sleeves shows that once a company has paid for the privilege of producing a shirt, that usually means they do what they like.  But not always.

The protracted tale of what West Ham United should wear on their shirts recently came to something of a conclusion with pressure from the supporters leading to children's shirts bearing the logo of The Bobby Moore Fund.  Being cynical comes naturally to me but that affair can also be seen as an achievement for the ticket (and shirt)-buying public.  At the very least, something was done to appease the fans.  It wasn't sufficient but it was something.