Apologies to anyone who is offended by my timekeeping.  The navy England away shirt has been out for nearly a year and only now am I going to review it.  I do have excuses but they're wafer-thin so I'll get on with the business in hand.

As late as it is, it may actually be an ideal time to read about the pros and cons of the current England away shirt.  There's a tournament coming - generally the point at which there is a spike in shirt sales - and England, despite my claims that they would wear Nike and/or a red away at Euro 2012, will be packing this model for their journey to Eastern Europe.  So as I have a review example, probably the last one I'll receive, let's make the most of it.

First a little background.  The shirt was launched by way of British boxer David Haye carrying it on his back prior to being completely outclassed by Wladimir Klitschko in his world title unification bout.  Not an auspicious start from the marketing perspective and it got worse still when Haye blamed his defeat on a broken toe.  After the lauded Tom Meighan-assisted unveiling of the previous away shirt there was method in the madness, but it backfired spectacularly.

The Kasabian stunt was also more accurately reprised with the assistance of dance music act Chase & Status (me neither) but the damage was done.  The England shirt would have to do its talking on the pitch.

The tragedy is it needn't have been this way.  The latest concoction from the Tailored By conveyor belt actually had a back story, and probably the best yet.  Instead of relying on erring boxers and disc spinning hat wearers (is there no end to C&S's talents?), Umbro could possibly have made more of the fact that the colour scheme which, as would pass, so many baulked at, had origins in the traditional appearance cap given to every player turning out for the national side.  When I was later educated with this further information, David Haye and the apparent musical geniuses disappeared in a puff of smoke, to be replaced with comforting nostalgia.

And if we view the shirt from this perspective it fares well.  It's not red, but red has been done to death and, whilst I maintain that the brand new goalkeeper shirt may well have originally been designed as an away - and I'm not ruling out it being promoted to that (Chase-less) status by way of public opinion and Derren Brown-esque mind control from Umbro - it's actually a relief to not have to compare an England change shirt to one worn 46 years ago.  This shirt is unashamedly navy and it should be commended for its arrogance.

It's also unspectacular.  Like the first Tailored By home shirt in '09, it's simple and for all the history and fanfare surrounding its release the most positive attribute is its understatedness.  As a design piece it is measured and restrained.

From a tailoring perspective it may be the best yet.  The shape and cut stick to the principles of the '09 home but now the chest/shoulder stitching details are more flattering and pronounced.  As Umbro are always very keen to emphasise, this isn't a skin-tight shirt but more than ever before, sorry Kitbag, it is a shirt that must be tried on.  Get it in the right size and it will flatter most of us, get it in the wrong size and it will be unforgiving or, if worn oversized, will defeat the purpose and descend into pointless polo shirtery.

That last comparison is, like its 2009-2010 home equivalent, the shirt's biggest failing.  As a replica shirt it's not quite enough.  Wayne Rooney looks fantastic kicking opponents in it because he accessorises with UEFA patches, his number on his chest and match-specific scroll below the crest.  For the average fan these details will be missing and, even allowing for the now noticeably high profile Umbro logo, it needs something a little extra. Three years ago I suggested a pink t-shirt under the home shirt, now my fondness is with baselayers and I urge the sartorially discerning to use one in the collar's paler blue as a complement.  It wouldn't be allowed on the pitch but, for once, the fan has an advantage over the player.

So nice cut, nice collar - though why it has no top button in this age of Micky Flanagan's w*nker/a*sehole is beyond me - and it is the last, to date, England shirt with what we will call a proper crest.

Yes, another advantage of reviewing the away shirt so late on is that I can compare it to the more recent release(s).  For me it is an absolute tragedy that Umbro have elected to eschew the greatest thing that their Tailored By range brought to the table, an England crest perfectly coloured and embroidered in all its three-lioned and crown and 'England' legend-less glory.

As a quick contrast, the England away shirt is based on a bastion of tradition and features the definitive crest, whilst the new England home kit is white with three-tone red details, save for the crest which is in just the one shade, and a collar that pops to reveal more three-tone red details.  The new home kit also features white shorts and, due to its simplified crest, the shirt cannot even be paired with the enduring navy change away shorts, which may have been a popular concession to the wallet and history.  Instead we look forward to a change pair in red #3.  Oh joy.

All in all the England away shirt is a masterpiece for the inventive.  You may have to work to see it in its full glory but as a creation it avoids being run through by the double-edged sword of design for design's sake.

Being all things to all men is a tricky balancing act for Umbro - a recent request for ideas on the direction of future shirts on a popular kit design forum was met with comment #1 "...stop making the shirts too simple." swiftly followed by comment #2 "A simple plain white shirt." - but taking pride in inspiring the quite brilliant new Nike ranges such as the risky France designs is not adequate if your own latest offering implies your most pressing current concern is determining which episode of Nathan Barley you inhabit.

Congratulations, Umbro.  The Tailored By range has been a wonderful breath of fresh air which has revolutionised kit design and, although it doesn't shout it from the rooftops, the current away/third-shirt-in-waiting is one of its finest purveyors.  Let's just hope time doesn't reveal it to be the zenith before the shark was jumped.

England have a new kit. For the fifth time in three years the Three Lions are mounted on a brand, spanking new outfield design.

And this time they're red.

The totally unauthorised leak/bizarre left-field Umbro-managed launch of the home and "goalkeeper" kit (more of which later) by supposed twitter legend Joey Barton (and subsequent drip-feeding on the manufacturer's facebook page) shows the crest, as intricate as the last two incarnations, now dispenses with the spectrum of tradition and instead goes with a single coloured tonal approach. We've seen the limited edition tonal range of previous releases but this is a first - in the modern era at least - for the playing wear.

Over the last few days we've become aware of what the FC Barcelona shirts for 2012-13 will look like.  Despite the Spanish media having form in getting this oh so wrong it seems this time they've nailed it.

The designs for the new Barça kits will again prove controversial, with a home shirt looking like a PSG number minus that nauseating white and through short-sighted eyes, and an orange away (they never go without that for more than a year) gradually lightening lower down.  But, let's face it, they're called the Blaugrana but that doesn't mean they have to wear stripes. Halves and diagonal halves (ish) have been seen over recent years - nodding to early kits - and coupled with their random rotating of blue and red shorts they're almost Bayern Munich-like in their approach to home colours.

A greater controversy is surely the adoption of not one but two sponsors as of this season.  From a side which never wanted to distract attention from their famous colours whatsoever, they became the first side in the Champions League to carry an extra name on the lower back of their shirts - swiftly followed by the opportunistic Chelsea.  Yes, Unicef is a charitable organisation - as is, we're told, The Qatar Foundation, which now holds pride of place on the front - but both made it onto the shirt by way of commercial decision by the club, and a decision that has brought in both millions of euros and oodles of positive PR.

So yes, the club now puts sponsors on the shirt.  This is partly to finally bite the bullet and realise if they want to purchase Europe's best talent they will need to start offering real money, but generally speaking it'a just Barça catching up with a trend they should really be at the forefront of.  Still the question is begged, if the club is now so commercially savvy, why they make errors such as accompanying the section of their website that sells last season's away kit with images of Gerard Pique and Leo Messi wearing the mint green shirt in its 2011-12 third kit form with Qatar Foundation sponsor (not on sale) along with the player issue green change shorts (again, not on sale).

No, Barça are still relatively new to this money-making lark, which is why Nike are allowed so much freedom of expression in their kit designs.  Yes, the old cliché of it being difficult to do much with stripes (and hoops - though next season's 125th anniversary Celtic shirt should blow that theory out of the water) will be oft-quoted and given as an excuse to dispense with them altogether, albeit temporarily, but strip a club of its traditions and it becomes less marketable immediately and the directors at the Camp Nou should be mindful of this.

Granted, the most important thing is on-field success, which Barça have consistently, but even then the shirt design has had the potential to hinder this through manufacturing oversights.  If the shirt's literally weighing heavy perhaps it's worth considering this to be an unsubtle message that a little too much is going on and, regarding sponsors, has been added on to one of the most iconic football kits of all time.

Here are my key moments in football design from the year that was.

• Boro Futsal, finally, wore the shirt which Morgan O'Brien designed to win the DF competition back in '09.  It may seem a strange choice as top highlight of 2011 but it means that DF's influence on the football world continues to grow.
• Much more exciting, for me personally at least, was Steevo's Liverpool away shirt getting (mass-?)produced in the Far East and appearing on eBay, then every football news website which pilfers from Football Shirt Culture and even featuring in the infamous video of the Manchester United fan in with Liverpool supporters during the Merseyside club's tour of Asia (blink and you'll miss it).
• 2011 also belonged to Portman Kunis United.  The Dallas indoor team have, to date, given us four shirts - plus t-shirts - of almost unparalleled beauty in the amateur game.  They're now almost as famous as Natalie and Mila.
• The three very different instances above both show that amateur kit design, when done well, can infiltrate the mainstream.  2011 even saw both Augsberg and, of greater note, Olympique de Marseille, offering up the opportunity for fans to design a change kit.  We've actually progressed much further and quicker than I predicted.
• But then, occasionally, it can be done very poorly.  No amateur designers to blame here, just a marketing campaign from Puma offering Tottenham Hotspur fans the opportunity to "Guess The Kit".  Nice idea, only the final design, albeit classy, was devoid of very much detail - the leaked images didn't even have a sponsor!  Congratulations to the entrant who went for a collar and two badges.
• 2011 was also The Year of The Bottler.  No, I'm not referring to plastic bottles going into the production of Nike shirts (very good.  You're part of the solution rather than the problem we're sure) but instead their choice of Monaco-style halves for Barça - but really stripes still unless you look really, really closely - adidas's well-publicised but barely noticeable sash on the new Spain shirt and, most annoyingly, Puma copping out of putting 'painted' stripes on the Newcastle shirt for a second successive season - despite triumphs elsewhere.  In fairness, this season's shirt is actually quite brave and they still haven't put a black cat on a single item.  Good going.
• Speaking of which, the new Scotland home kit from adidas was sublime.  A complete bolt from the blue, apparently a Scot holds a high position at the company...
• Boots rarely get me going but the Umbro GT Pro II is a thing of wonder.  Superfly shmooperfly.
• Finally, who could forget the moment that FSC was brought to its knees with a vicious hack-attack (if you'll excuse the terminology) just after featuring a leak of Nike's Manchester United kits for the 2012-13 season.  Obviously someone very skilled, or someone who can pay lots of money to someone very skilled, wasn't too happy about the cat being let out of the bag.  FSC, fortunately, lived to see another day.

Or perhaps that should be "'Match Worn' Football Shirts". You see, I speak as both a generally uninterested party and often a non-believer. The notion that a, as Frankie Boyle has it, "millionaire pervert" has sweated into an item of clothing does very little for me. It's not something I wish to own and it's not something I wish to trade in. And there have often been items sent to test that resolve.

The concept of match worn football shirts has an interesting history. A hundred years ago any football shirt you could get your hands on was in effect a match worn shirt or match issue at the very least - though why a shirt would be produced and never worn by a player in those modest days would be a mystery.

Then, in the latter quarter of the last century replica sales took off. This didn't really happen in earnest until the late 70s and early 80s, becoming an enormous source of revenue for clubs in the 90s onwards.

Here's where things started to get curious.  In the 80s/early 90s there would be two types of shirts produced by the leading manufacturers (at this time, particularly in the UK and Europe, Umbro & adidas).  One would be a higher quality example, for the players on the pitch, which would include beautifully embroidered-through crests and manufacturers' logos and a large-sized sponsor (an early concession for the tv cameras).  The other, for fans, would be very similar but with allowances made for mass-production.  This would include embossed badges or perhaps even all details being sublimated within the shirt, a very cheap and simple printing technique.

As well as this fact, player shirts would often come in more desirable larger sizes and have a choice of long or short sleeved.  As much as it pains me to say it, there is no superior on-pitch look than the Manchester United 1992-94 Third Shirt (Newton Heath) - with long sleeves, fully embroidered badges and larger sponsor - being carried untucked by Andrei Kanchelskis immediately after handling on his own goal line in the 1994 League Cup Final.  Genuinely, has anyone ever looked so cool before or since?

However, towards the end of the 1990s (it actually took this long for this realisation to dawn), football people sat down and noted that no footballers, nor any TV cameras, really needed embroidered badges.  No, as if a thousand ruptured athletes' nipples wasn't enough, in a standard definition age the embroidered badges were wasted on a tv audience.  So the decision was taken to flip reverse this state of affairs.  Fans would receive shirts with detailed, embroidered badges and stitched material stripes (adidas) and player wear would have printed or thin plastic top-mounted details, including stripes, and inner seams would be heat-bonded instead of stitched, with a view to these finely-tuned and highly-paid sportsmen having minimum distraction and discomfort as they went about their business.

So now we get to an age where adidas Techfit shirts, vacuum packing players worldwide since 2009, bear less resemblance to replica wear than any shirt that preceded them.  Now there is once again a benefit to owning the player specification shirt, should you feel you have the body for it, though it must be remembered that these items are now designed to be worn only the once, so may not be as sturdy - or survive as many washes - as a replica.  To this end, manufacturers now sell the player shirts, often as part of boxsets, with commemorative certificates 'proving' that they are to player specification.  Why so many of these Nike boxed items have fabric rather than printed wash-labels I can't answer, as players haven't been bothered by such an addition for several years.

Anyway, I digress.  The above sums up, in a basic way, the reasons why fans may like to choose a player specification shirt over a mass-produced version.  What it doesn't explain is why anyone would go onto eBay and pay several hundred pounds for an article that is supposedly - and supposition is the key - worn by a player, in a particular match.

Now I don't wish to offend or besmirch the reputation of collectors and traders - the guilty make a pretty good job of that themselves - but the only way you can be sure a shirt you own is match worn is if the player, immediately after stepping off the pitch, takes off the shirt and hands it to you.  Any other circumstance involves a level of faith and trust, often indirect and several times removed.

Which brings me on to a certain shirt on sale on eBay at time of publishing.  The seller has a quite formidable reputation, has been selling shirts listed as "match worn" for quite some time and, immediately after the announcement of the death of hugely respected Wales manager Gary Speed, decided to list a Wales shirt with a felt number 11 printed on the back which the seller states is "Match worn by Gary Speed against Moldova on 06/09/1995 on a rainy night at Arms Park."

Now this is a quite astonishing act of altruism, as the seller will donate 50% of the selling price - up to £500 - to the young suicide prevention charity Papyrus.  What is desperately unfortunate is that this particular player specification style of shirt is available to purchase, as is the style of printing, so it would be possible to 'make up' a shirt in this form to pass off as a match worn Gary Speed shirt, or indeed the Ian Rush and Ryan Giggs shirts the seller also coincidentally is in possession of.  According to the "supporting document" produced by Memorabilia City, the "Gary Speed" item has been verified by a "Dawn Symons", perhaps a relation of Speed's former Wales teammate Kit, but as the availability of each element of the item is such, the potential of selling it to a collector must be significantly compromised.  That, it could be argued, is a real shame for Papyrus, but then faith and trust is the nature of the "match worn" beast.

Football kit design has shifted somewhat in recent years.  There seems to be a trend now for bolder, more obvious design features, a notable example being the new Chelsea away shirt - though the more warmly received third also displays these characteristics.

Gone, apparently, are subtleties.  Watermark patterns are rarely used; it's either a tiny Liver Bird recessed for the purposes of dissuading counterfeiters or a large and easily noticeable duplication of the crest, such as on the Scotland home shirt.  It seems that any detail that cannot be spotted from a distance is regarded as a waste of time and effort.

The fact is, as much as I may bemoan it, the majority of adidas & Nike's target markets do not see their favourite club's shirt for the first time on Football Shirt Culture.  No, they see it on tv.  And piping, watermarks and 2mm coloured trim to collars don't show up on tv, even in the High Definition age.

The first time I noticed this progression was in 2008 when Nike released a tribute to the 1988-91 Arsenal Away shirt, as worn in the incredible end to the 1988-89 Division One title race, when The Gunners went to Anfield on the last day needing to win by two clear goals and they scored the vital clincher with just seconds remaining.  The original shirt, by adidas, featured the most sparing use of red on the edges of the collar, stripes and sponsor and red piping at the join of main body and sleeves.  This also featured a watermark.  The tribute is devoid of any of this subtlety but on tv it looked great and did certainly bring back memories of '89 when Andrei Arshavin scored four to extinguish another Liverpool title challenge.

Nike is biggest culprit and has been for a few years, and now adidas seem to be following their lead.  There are beautiful details on modern examples which we've never seen before and can only spot close-up, such as the multicoloured crosses on the back of the England home shirt, or the messages on the reverses of crests on Nike's range, but there are three perspectives on a football shirt: from a longer distance - watching the games from the stands or a sofa - spitting distance, if you will - along the bar in a pub - and the view of the wearer, looking down on the article they have on.  The first and last are covered, the second is being neglected.

Player Issue shirts have long taken this approach.  Bigger sponsors and crests, manufacturers' logos and adidas stripes printed rather than embroidered or stitched on.  Now the design stage of the overall looks of new releases seem to be wholly geared towards marketing the shirt to the television audience, with the theory being that if the star player from forty yards and via a camera lens looks good then a fan will be sold on the idea.  For the sake of aesthetics it may be a sad development but no doubt the money has started talking and, until it shuts up, we can kiss goodbye to the multi-layered designs of yore.