Sergio Canos breaking Brentford hearts by leaving Liverpool for Norwich City. The Aston Villa game put back a day due to their other, inevitable, television commitments. Dean Smith experimenting with his Mannschaft by playing three centre backs in the 1-0 win over Vfl Bochum. All mere side shows compared to the day’s BIG news – our first glimpse of the 2016/17 Brentford shirt after a series of pre-order images hit social media this afternoon.
So, what can we tell so far? Well, based on the handful of ’teaser’ shots released by the club – below – the home shirt certainly looks like it has the makings of being a classic.
We can see at least two thick red strips and three thick white ones. Are there more? What about on the back ? We can see a round neck collar, 60’s style. We can see what looks like perforated, airtex style material on the shoulder blades. We can also see the traditional adidas stripes, in black.
A round white collar. This is a first for recent times. We almost got there on the 2006/07 Lonsdale produced shirt although it was a strange pleated affair . Prior to that it hasn’t been a visitor to the Bees shirt since the late 60s /early 70s.
The white/red stripes put me in mind of Core’s effort from 1995/96 although, thankfully, the shirt doesn’t look like it is made out of that somewhat lightweight material that picked up pulls and bobbles (at least on the fan replicas) just by looking at it. Very much a case of Core’s light
As for the shoulder stripes, we’ve had black on white once before. Also Lonsdale, back in 2005/06 where, let’s just politely say, they paid homage to Adidas. Two out of three ain’t bad (stripes, that was) but we can only assume the shirt goes one better this time around.
The latest images draw on our past
It’s what we can’t see that is as interesting. There’s no glimpse of the new shirt sponsor – confirmed as 888Sport and, for the record, also to be adorning the kits of Nottingham Forest and Birmingham City this season.
There’s no look at the side or under the arms. Could we expect more red there? Might we see further Adidas stripes – a look common to many of their MLS and international templates at present.
And there’s no look at shorts or socks,. Presumably black will be the colour of choice but I’m always a sucker for a white bottom half. Perhaps Mark Devlin and team will surprise us.
And talking of black, that’s the way we’ve gone on our away colours. At least, from the snippet afforded of that shirt. Plain black, a hint of horizontal pin stripe, another round neck and the adidas stripes in white.
The shirts are already available on pre-order from the club shop. In my humble opinion, based on what we can see so far the club are on to a winner.
Nick Bruzon
BrentfordFC 