What’s In A Kit? Have You Ever Wondered Just What It Is?

A few weeks ago, I pencilled a topic for this week’s article, sensing that the Nation’s League would have plenty of talking points.

But after watching [most of] it, there was so little other than VAR to get my knickers in a twist over that I went for something else; a subject that really sets the football fans pulse racing during the summer.

No, not the transfer window opening, new signings or even the women’s World Cup in France (that’s already had so many VAR incidents that I’m putting that topic on ice for now). None of these create quite the level of intrigue, buzz and debate as the subject that I’m talking about; the unveiling of the new season’s kit.

It was also a way to get Leagues One and Two involved after a tweet about last week’s Champions League article not being in D3D4 scope. To be fair, this column has rarely featured the two lower tiers of the EFL; it was always intended to be more random and generic – a recent one even focussed on how some people use social media to make themselves feel better.

So, kits then?  What is it about them that invites so much interest and splits opinion? The very idea of getting excited – or even bothered – about a kit is a relatively new phenomenon, and one I’ve grown up with. I started getting into football at the end of the 70s, a time when the kit was becoming more than a way to identify the teams. For a couple of years, manufacturers had started to experiment with stripes on the sleeves and logos on the front, maybe the odd yolk, chest band or sash, although that was about the extent of their innovations.

But for many young (and older) fans, this added to the magic of the beautiful game. It was something else to marvel at or exhibit; a way of distinguishing ourselves and telling the world who we supported. Early designs were patchy to say the least in the late 70s and early 80s – when the most stylish kit was in Knight Rider. We had abominations like Coventry City’s brown away kit (lampooned at the time, especially when shown worn by Ian Wallace and his larger-than-life strawberry blond perm) but this kit has since found its way onto lists for both the ‘Best Ever’ and ‘Worst Ever’ kits that lots of magazines and websites often draw up, demonstrating that time and nostalgia play a big part in the replica kit world.

The late-eighties and early nineties saw a sea change. With the changes in material printing techniques, all kinds of unusual, striking and in some cases downright offensive designs hit the market, coinciding with the recognition of kits sales as a significant income stream. This is an era that is least fondly remembered for great designs; who can forget the Wolves top with the tyre marks, Brighton’s Tesco carrier-bag design, Norwich’s egg and cress (although time has changed opinion on that too) or the slightly unnerving Hull City kit with tiger stripes? But it was also the time of the much-loved half and half Danish kit, worn in the 1986 World Cup, so it wasn’t all bad. That World Cup also saw me buy the England shirt designed specifically for the heat in Mexico. This was a good example of my own desperate search for unique kits and why some of us become so obsessed with them. This shirt was a one-off for the tournament; perforated material to keep the players cool in ninety degree heat and that I quickly learnt was not half as useful when it was 13 degrees and pissing down in Walsall.

The new millennium ushered in the tighter-fitting top to match the longer shorts that had also become mainstream. Kappa were mainly to blame; their figure-hugging designs perfectly acceptable when worn by an Adonis on the pitch, but less so if someone had eaten all the pies and then tried to get away with donning one on the terraces. The noughties have seen a cyclical approach as many manufacturers trawl the archives and back catalogues for inspiration. It often works – Everton’s two recreations of the 1983-85 strip they wore in their most successful recent period comes to mind – but not always. Southampton’s abandonment of stripes for an all-red top (also from 1985) being an example of a step too far.

Today, the latest kits are popular but so are the nostalgia-inducing ones from the past too. At the Champions League Final, as well that season’s effort, many fans in the stadium wore shirts that can best be described as Crown Paints, Candy or Carlsberg if they were red or Hewlett Packard or Holsten Pils if they were white. Some even pre-dated the addition of sponsor’s logos.

Modern kits split opinion and provoke supporter ire in ways that wouldn’t have been possible forty years ago when all clubs had simple arrangements and an equally bland change option. Nowadays, most clubs will release three kits and some four so there are far more ways to disappoint or annoy. Football clubs can get away with a lot of things, such as signing players from clubs the fans hate, employing managers who have managed bitter rivals or even bringing in players who’ve been a bit naughty in their private life. But mess with the shade of blue or dare to introduce pinstripes for the first time, and all hell breaks loose.

For the 2019/20 season, several new kits are already either available or have had images leaked. Where some, like Liverpool’s, are that perfect blend of tradition and understated style, others haven’t gone down so well. Barcelona, who haven’t messed around too much with their blue and dark red stripes over the years have gone with a left-field checkboard effect (think Croatia), which has received mixed reviews. Before that, the bravest they got was a half and half top, but that was actually a homage to their first ever design. Liverpool, for one, can’t do that as their original shirt was, whisper it, blue and white.

Launches are also box office. Southampton’s latest new kit video was inspired and isn’t the first time they’ve thought outside the box to create a buzz and put the kit very much in the public eye. But there is a law of diminishing returns in football kits because with every passing year, the options available that can be mined from the past gets smaller (a lot of kits were roughly the same from the 30s to the 70s) as designs are being used up and there is often very little scope to go too radical without causing unwanted headaches in the fan base.

I was with a friend and colleague when Sunderland’s latest kit was launched and this proved the point. Red and white stripes (indeed, any stripes) are hard to change much without moving away from tradition (never a great idea) and the manufacturers have begun to look for ways to compromise; in this case going for the good old fashioned stripes on the front, but with a plain back that makes them look like anyone other than Sunderland from behind.

Early reaction wasn’t favourable. This made me think a little deeper about what was taking place.

Clubs already have an up and down relationship with their fans depending on factors ranging from the previous season’s performance to season-ticket prices, so the kit is one opportunity that also presents a quick win for any club; yet so many disenfranchise at least fifty-percent of their fans before a ball has even been kicked. I’ve seen a noticeable movement towards fans being asked to choose, or even design, kits for their club this season. This is not new but many more clubs are engaging with their fans this season and holding votes to choose home or away kits. It makes a lot of sense, after all, who is the kit really for if not for the fan to buy and wear with pride?

It matters much less to the club and the players. In the years before the late 70s, the kit was there to simply distinguish between the two teams and make it easier for the referee and Match of the Day viewers. Although colours and identity became significant and important, the actual styles and designs were of far less consequence than they are now, where they are created with high-street fashion in mind rather than their suitability as a playing kit.

Another issue is timing. Liverpool, for instance, launched their ‘Bob Paisley inspired’ 2019/20 home kit weeks ago and probably would have used it in the Champions League Final but for a UEFA rule that forbade it. The earlier this gets, the harder it is to engage fans fully because all the leg work takes place while the previous season is in full swing as fans don’t want to be worrying about stripes on shorts in April when championships, cups or promotion are still up for grabs. But leave it too late, and the new kits aren’t ready in time for the pre-season sales window.

Interestingly, reported in the way only The Mirror online can do (basically trawling Twitter for stories to repeat), some Liverpool fans stopped their UCL celebrations to complain about the new away kit after it was leaked ahead of the official launch calling it ‘boring’ and ‘dull’; kind of like the story itself but also an indication that even recently becoming Champions of Europe doesn’t immunise you from ‘new-kit-complaints.’

So this represents a perfect opportunity to really engage and turn over a part of the running of the club to fans. Imagine that instead of a vote – based on three pre-chosen designs – that a club actually asked fans to do it all. It’s a facet of the club where you can almost give them a free hand and there are no losers. With social media and digital technology, gathering opinion has never been easier. But it can go beyond that; where instead of simply asking, the club could hand the whole project over to their fans (of course it would need to be facilitated by some responsible ones on behalf of the masses) and let them work with the manufacturers right from the get-go.

It’s difficult to time it perfectly, but as my club, Walsall, were sliding towards potential relegation to League Two and with fans not only disgruntled but also beginning to turn on each other, I wondered how effective it would have been to galvanise them behind the new kit – what better way to say ‘we’re making a fresh start’ or ‘we hear you’ than a gesture like that?

Walsall have a history of kit innovations and radical change. We were doing checkboards in the nineties and the half and half top back in the 1800s. We’ve also had plain, stripes, different sleeves, sashes, flecks, pinstripes; even a weird kind of tyre-tread-print of our own.

But there are two iconic kits that always come back time and again when fans get onto this subject. One is the white shirts and red shorts that is pretty unique in its own right and, until Stevenage came into the league, was virtually unseen. I always liked the fact that in my Subbuteo days, that kit (ref: 39) was shared by Walsall and Poland – our Warsaw links go well beyond Sky Sports News!

The other is even rarer and only also used in the past by Swansea as an away kit, and that is the red/white/green number you’d associate more with the great Hungarian national team of the 1950s and beyond.

My understanding was that this kit was chosen as the favourite by Walsall fans in a survey a few seasons back but it has never been recreated as a playing kit since it was worn from 1977-1980.

This coming season, we’ve gone for red shirts and white shorts and it’s very nice with a distinct lack of over-elaborate detailing and the nice added touch of a Black Country flag embedded into the inside, below the collar. It’s a smart kit but what a massive opportunity there was to add green socks instead of the red ones and send out a message that ‘we’re Walsall, we’re different and this one’s for our supporters.’

Something for clubs to think about?

And besides, there are still plenty of other ways to f**k fans off once the season starts.