Four in Four for England’s Shot Stoppers

Third kits have a knack for endurance, maybe not so in the last decade but until then, retaining strips for another season wasn’t considered taboo. Most of that time, it was just an away kit being relegated to the third for the next campaign but anyway, it prolongs the shelf life to make up for

Man United Shorts Off Perfection

Manchester United don’t exactly have an exemplary record in being resourceful with shorts and socks of complementary kits, which can be dated as far back as the 1950s. In that instance, a white change strip appeared during the tail end of the 1956-57 season, featuring red-trimmed bottoms. When the home already had plain white shorts,

Two Worlds Apart, Too Close to Home

At their Be the Difference event in Marseille in late August 2015, Adidas showcased their new premium third kits for the upcoming season. The range emphasised on the European pedigree of the six clubs that would go on to wear it, who at the time had 28 Champions League titles between them. Called ‘Spark in

Trouble with Hummel

Vibrant green is a fairly recent adoption for Forest Green Rovers; chairman Dale Vince took them over in 2010 and a year later, a new crest was adopted. Wanting them to share his personal environmentalist ethos, the rebrand included replacing their well-established black-and-white stripes for 2012-13, to some obvious commotion. Green by name and now

Umbro Anniversary Blues

Earlier this week — in the most topical I’ve been so far on this blog — the Republic of Ireland celebrated their association’s centenary with a friendly against Qatar. To mark the occasion, Umbro produced a vintage-style kit based on their first ever uniform, from against Bulgaria in the Paris Olympics of 1924. In the

Brazil’s Dark Recent History

In this golden age of capitalism, companies do whatever they can to make some extra bucks. As long-time partners, the intellectual property of the well-renowned Brazilian national team is a cash cow primed for milking by Nike and one way they did that is by releasing dark-coloured Brazil “third” shirts through the 2010s. 2010 was

Gold a No-Go?

2005-06 for Arsenal was memorable for a few reasons, namely it being their last campaign at Highbury after 93 years and they reached the UEFA Champions League Final for the first time. To commemorate the stadium’s farewell, Nike produced redcurrant shirts for the Gunners, supposedly a pastiche of what they wore when they moved to

Juventus – 2004-05

A new season is always a fresh start, especially when you roll out a rebrand. The club modernised the crest, keeping the shape and key components of the old one, nothing drastic like their abstract revamp thirteen years later. Finishing the previous campaign trophyless, there was nothing to showcase on the new kits as the

Have You Got the Wrong Number?

Sometimes a kitman could be having a bad day; the washing machine broke or the courier got delayed, or perhaps everything went well and he just forgot to have his Weetabix. I’ll be looking at players being made to wear incorrect shirt numbers as a result, sometimes with very creative workarounds. Therefore I won’t be

Hi, My Name Is…

It may be uncommon for players to go by different names on their shirt for club and country, usually because one of them — namely the latter — goes by particular principles, but rarer than that is a player doing it for the same team for one reason or another. Premier League rules stipulate that