The Best Bar None

Dave Woods paused for effect immediately after delivering the dramatic news. With Channel 5 having hit the jackpot with their serendipitous adoption of Athletic Bilbao's Uefa Cup campaign - and reclaiming the formerly mocking "Thursday Nights on Channel 5" chant with all stigma banished - the commentator now had the opportunity to consolidate this success with a surefire winner. News had come through that Atletico Madrid were through to the Final and should Bilbao get past Sporting Lisbon to meet them then they would be nominally the away team and, wait for it, be required to wear their green away shirt.

When a football shirt has even got the commentators onboard you can say with some confidence that the design's hit the spot. In the case of Athletic Bilbao, the shirt benefits from being coupled with a successful side playing football regarded in a similar bracket to Barcelona and Swansea City and with a ruthless attacking flair akin to that displayed by Tottenham Hotspur in the first half of the season.

So the connotations of the shirt are sound, what about the aesthetics?  When the kit was first released the admiration was resounding and as time has gone on it has grown on even those who were unmoved.  If you look for a purpose in a shirt's makeup then the lifting of the Basque Country's Ikurrin's (flag) colours, a local company's classy logo as sponsor and the standard inclusion of the local coucil's oak leaf logo on the sleeve should suffice; its obvious resemblance to the Basque national team's shirt (combined with the club's status as a national team by proxy) was always going to catch the eye as a handy bonus.  Throw in a touch of fraternité with Irish/Celtic fans sympathetic to the separatist region's cause - and always on the lookout for new and exciting ways to contribute to their own seas of green - and popularity is almost guaranteed.

But there is one key element included that has translated across (and in spite of?) teams, colours and connotations and been the standout design feature of the 2011-12 season.  The chest bar/stripe has appeared on some of the best releases of the season and its effect is demonstrated perfectly on the Bilbao shirt, where its continuation onto the sleeves makes for an instantly recognisible kit and the perfect interpretation of a club's most treasured flag.  The same approach (for that read "template") was used on the Rangers Away shirt and, although the Union Jack is not as obvious, the block colours are equally striking.

The feature also tasted victory on Wednesday night when, adorning the white kits of Chelsea in their formidable defeat of Barcelona, it may have shoehorned its way into the London club's folklore - not least through being carried by Fernando Torres when he executed and celebrated one of his few goals for the side.  This beautiful Third shirt has been criminally underused this season - which is especially confusing when we consider that their Away kit is black and Birmingham City binned their own similarly coloured second strip because it failed to provide an adequately non-clashing alternative when playing against teams in darker shades of blue.

So the feature could almost be regarded as synonymous with European competition success and its appeal spreads far and wide.  If we go back to Euro 2008, Germany wore a back chest bar with gold and red trim which included their player numbers in white - in contrast to the numbers on the back of the shirt in black - and this was one of the shirts of that tournament.  Go back even further and we come across thinner stripes horizontally on France shirts in the Eighties and one of the most iconic England shirt designs made so by a coloured bar across the chest/shoulders.

There are variations - Spurs' popular Puma shirt of 2010-11 featured a shoulder/chest bar at an angle - but as a general component it usually seems to work however it is applied.  Brazil's "loading bar" shirts didn't last long and may have pushed the concept to its limit in demonstrating a lack of unity between the bar and the rest of the design but it could well be the exception that proves the rule.

Personally, I think the feature has made 2012 its own, which is why I chose kits including a chest stripes to represent DF on the League of Blogs Wallchart.  With the possibility of the aspect contributing to the winning of both European club trophies this season, Poland - who with the Ukraine host this summer's European Championships - or Italy, via their away kits, could even give it a hattrick.