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

England – 2004-06

Thanks to England Football Online for some of the finer details. Usually with national teams, I either document them for a kit cycle or from the qualification stages of a tournament until its finals if they reach that, or perhaps both as those criteria can overlap. That can be simple enough but if the kits’

Nike & Umbro United

Nike’s ‘Stand Up Speak Up‘ campaign was instigated by its athlete Thierry Henry, when he was the subject of racist remarks made by Spain coach Luis Aragonés. His comments were caught on film during a training session with his national team, aimed at Henry’s Arsenal teammate José Antonio Reyes as a way to motivate him.

Kappa Doing Things by Halves

If there are three things that are ubiquitous with Kappa’s Kombat range — it’s the tight fit, raglan sleeves and inverted seams. You could say the repatriation of Italy’s kits to the Turin firm in 1999 was the forerunner; ridding the clutter of the such as the sleeve taping and flappy collar, going for a

Clash of the Devils

AC Milan and Manchester United are two European heavyweights that share the colour palette of red, white and black — arguably the two biggest clubs to prominently use the three. Executed in their own styles, United typically go with red shirts, white shorts and black socks; Milan red-and-black striped shirts, white shorts and black or

Pointless Change Kits #1 – England, 2005

Massive help from England Football Online for this piece. I’m starting another sporadic series that’s more cynical than my ‘Unpleasing Clashes‘ one, although my first ever post did technically cover this subject. You all better hold on to your waistbands or whatever. Launched with England’s new home kit, which had the red cross of St

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

Northern Ireland – 2004-06

After a ten-year hiatus, Northern Ireland re-signed with Umbro again from the summer of 2004. Their previous stint consisted of navy blue away kits through that tenure but their then-successors — Asics, Olympic Sportswear and then Patrick — took it up to 11 by heavily incorporating the colour into the home shirt, a trend they

A (Selective) Alternate History of Manchester City

It wasn’t an uncommon sight for Manchester City to wear a change of bottoms with their home shirt to alleviate some below-the-belt white-on-white action but now, they’re more likely to deviate from sky blue to prevent optional shorts clashes or just because. I will be looking at some of City’s kit variations from the 20

Melbourne Victory – The Formative Years

Australia’s failure to qualify for the 2002 World Cup resulted in an earthquake that shook its football (or maybe ‘soccer’ if you’re Antipodean) landscape to its very core. The federal government’s Crawford Report highlighted all sorts of misdoings by the big suits at the governing body Soccer Australia, which reformed as Football Federation Australia in