Well, the new season is upon us and what a start for Arsenal! 6-1 away win at Everton – not a bad day at the office. It was a surprise to see Villa go down at home to Wigan as well. Good Premier League debut for Man City’s smart new away kit.
The Arsenal game featured a moving moment when Cesc Fabregas dedicated his goals to Espanyol captain Daniel Jarque who died tragically last week at the age of 26. Fabregas held up a shirt featuring Jarque’s name and squad number in tribute.
Its very interesting to see how kits are big news this season. Not sure why but there’s been more talk about the supposedly outrageous designs than there has been for years. The Sun popped up with this feature:
I think its good for kit design though, that people are discussing designs and promoting debate. I also think its one of the richest years for kits for quite a while. Its a real pot pourri of styles with no common direction which makes it a mixed bag of both successful and unsuccesful kits. Last time I remember such a varied bunch was back in the very late 90s/early 00s. If you look back to the 70s, 80s and 90s design in terms of trimmings, neck designs, collars etc it was fairly predictable. Now anything goes; retro, contemporary,collars, minimalist necks, trim, no trim, symmetrical, asymmetrical. All this means however that its difficult to predict the next trend.
There’s also not many strips left to unveil – Portsmouth seem to have missed the boat on their new home kit. The home kit has been seen in press photos etc and of course worn on Saturday but unless I’m mistaken there has been no grand launch. Perhaps its due to the Canterbury situation. The new Man City third kit looks to be a real cracker as well.
Incidentally, many apologies for the lack of updates in the last week or so, there are several reasons for this, namely commitments of my 9-5 job, my 40th birthday celebrations last weekend and the various deadline-drive projects I’ve been working on – but more of that later.
I hope to add the next batch of 09-10 kit reviews and at least 4 new Kit Cupboard features in the next day or two. I’ve also been working on re-organising the site to include all kits from True Colours 1 and 2 and a special section on the Kit Cupboard which seems to be very popular. I’ve had loads of suggestions in as to what to feature and its interesting to see how many coincide with kits I’d already planned to include. Many thanks though for your thoughts – keep them coming. I’ll announce how this the new site structure is going to work shortly.
One of the major projects I have been working on is for a fantastic new site GreatestPlayerEver.com, which promises to definitely discover the greatest players of all-time based on user opinion. The site launched yesterday (15th August) with an English Football Premiership channel containing a full database of over 1600 players that have made over 20 appearances in the league since it started in 1992.
The site allows visitors to select the best player from two that are presented at each time and is a fascinating look back over the Premiership’s stars.
I am very pleased to be their launch sponsor and have worked with them on the graphics for the site.
I’m also really pleased to be supplying several clubs with regular kit graphics for their matchday programmes. So if you’re a regular visitor to Manchester City, Aston Villa, Sunderland, Preston, Cardiff, Derby or Notts County you should be seeing True Colours illustrations in each edition.
Well, its back to the BBC site to see how Liverpool are doing against Spurs…
happy 40th!! what about the clash of white shorts this weekend,everton/arsenal and United/brum? other points-spurs kit is awful but blackburn/hull and sunderlands are terrific.
Funny how Arsenal wore their navy away kit at Celtic tonight, yet wore their home at Everton, complete with white shorts.
It’s just ruddy bonkers.
Agree with John b…that Spurs kit is naff. Don’t mind the yellow panels, but the V looks horrible…this goes for all the Puma template kits with this feature…especially the kind iof dirty bit above it…just looks awful.
I guess these days, teams wear their away / 3rd kit whenever they want to generate more replica sales.
Oh and Happy 40th John! 🙂
The Spurs kit is great. Best and most original Spurs kit since the Hummel days. There are a lot of luddites around. Having said that I can’t get my head round the new Man U kit. It just seems wrong.
I love the new Man U kit!!! And the away version looks even better. The round neck doesn’t quite seem to fit though…guess a V neck wouldn’t look right along side the black chevron. Spurs 86-88 kits were the best ever! Especially the one they wore when Cov beat them in the FA Cup Final 😉
SMASH THE MACHINES!!!!
I agree with you about the Man U away kit but somehow it doesn’t work for me with the home kit. Like the ‘smash the machines’ comment – I see what you did there.
as a Man United fan,i have to say i dislike the ‘man u’ kits very much…too much black on the home shirt.
Its amazing how kits can divide opinion – that’s why this season’s designs are so interesting. I love the Man Utd shirt but I can see why some fans don’t. I just can’t make up my mind about the Spurs kit though…
Thanks for the birthday greetings!
just read that Scotland have signed a deal with adidas,hope its a proper retro kit.
Yeah I read that John. I’m a little nervous about it to be honest – adidas kits can often be a bit too much. I hope they do something restrained.
navy shirt,white shorts and red socks hopefully.
Goes without saying John! I was really hoping they’d get Umbro to be honest – I’ve got the new Man City (sorry!) kits and they really are something else in the flesh. Tailored by Umbro and Scotland would have been great.
hate to say it,but the city kit is very nice,simple and classy,surprised they didnt go all sky blue though? Umbro have really upped there game,carnt they give some ideas to there owners Nike!!!
My understanding is that Nike work as advisers/consultants with Umbro on their kit designs now – especially on the Tailored by Umbro range. You’re right though, when you compare them to say, adidas, kits the’re a world apart.
Much as I love the new England kit and think the Man City one is nice in the same way, does no-one else wonder if Umbro’s new style is just a tad ‘one trick pony’? New England kit…ultra minimalist / retro…new man city kit…ultra minimalist / retro… I may sound like a naysayer, but I think the hype machine needs to drop a few gears and let’s see what their next few Tailored designs look like…it’s been refreshing to start with but if all they end up doing is bringing out a range that would fit nicely in the Toffs catalogue then it’d be a somewhat false dawn. I really hope this isn’t the case…