From Bees to Bristol via Manchester United. Less X factor, more cringe factor

It’s that time of year. New shirts are being released and, as yet, Brentford are yet to indulge the fans. That’s fair enough although it does leave the kit obsessives amongst us desperate for any nugget of information we can find as to next season’s kit. Whilst looking around the Internet for clues I stumbled across something from Bristol City. And it’s not good. Not good at all. Plus we’ve got part 2 of the Manchester United / X-Men story….

Apologies in advance to any Robins fans who may see this. It is, relatively, ‘old news’ but a story that had eluded me. Likewise, it would seem, the majority of Brentford fans.

City released their new shirt at the end of last month and the design has not been met with favourably. Whilst many fans were hoping for a return of the classic ‘Robin’ badge from the 80s, instead they got hastags. Two of them.

In a triumph of marketing gone mad over sanity, the new Bristol City shirt features the inspirational phrases : #MakingBristolProud and #BristolCity embroidered into each shoulder.

This really is a thing

Nobody needs another lecture from me on football clubs failing to embrace / understand appropriate use of Twitter. Simple utterance of the phrase #Novemberkings should tell you all you need to know about this most cringeworthy of topics.

Yet City have taken it to a new extreme. They’ve woven this most sorry of social media phenomena directly into the very fabric of their being. And it’s awful.

The obvious worry is that other clubs will follow suit. We all know that Brentford have used hashtags (the wonderful #BeeTheDJ aside) with what we’ll politely call less than positive fan reaction in the past. Surely we wouldn’t go this far?

The Last Word art department have mocked up how this might look. Just in case anybody was considering that it might be a good idea.

Could we? Should we? No. Please, no!!

If Mark Devlin, Matthew Benham or Kitman Bob are reading (unlikely, but…) please put us out of our misery. Show us your kits. Please. If nothing else, I wouldn’t mind buying one for the summer holiday.

The other thing to catch my eye yesterday was what has been described as the most embarrassing thing to come out of Manchester United since that security firm had the incident in the toilet.

Following on from Tuesday night’s X-Men crossover, which involved the Old Trafford club body painting their child mascots blue, they’ve gone again. Specifically, with a video described by Telegraph football as: Wayne Rooney acting in an X-Men trailer will be the most cringeworthy thing you see today.

And they’re not wrong. Yet. Yet.Yet, This is so bad it’s actually brilliant. For those who revel in those wonderful moments when the worlds of football and acting collide we now have a new addition to the list.

Of course, nothing could ever top ‘Escape to Victory’ , Luis Figo’s ‘Just for Men advert’ or even the simple act of Eric Cantona raising his collar before sending Nike’s minions back to hell (also Figo, for the record…).

Rooney’s wooden exclamation of “Bloody Hell” isn’t in the same ball park as Cantona’s “Au Revoir” or men like Figo who never give in to grey (“still got it”). But compared to the ‘proper’ actors around him, dreadfully trying to crowbar the names of his Manchester United team mates into a ‘scene’ from the new movie, Wayne comes across with the gravitas of Morgan Freeman.

It’s bad. Very bad. Yet compelling. If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s below. But we’ve also got Eric, just to restore some sanity to proceedings.

Wayne – perhaps better picking punditry over acting.

Now THIS is how to act.

And finally, as ever, The Last Word ‘season review’ : Ready. Steady. Go Again and the three year anthology : The Bees are going up remain available for download.  Should anybody want to go over this nonsense and relive these moments once more then you can do so now.

It has been a stunning few years. Here’s to more of the same.  We may have had a few lows (something about a penalty, the football village, the FA Cup, the pitch, the Marinus experiment) but there have been plenty more highs as the Bees made an unexpected challenge for the Premier League.

Thank you again for reading.

Nick Bruzon

 

 

 

Get your kit on for the lads – the verdict on 2015/16 shirts is in.

The moment we’ve (I’ve) been waiting for has arrived. Brentford have released their 2015/16 kit to the world and, one has to say, it has been worth the wait.

First up, the home effort. We’d already seen the black shoulder stripes and a suggestion of matching collars and, erm, placket (Sean Connery can rest easy tonight – kids, ask your dads). These were confirmed along with some additional white side bands, deep red (power red, I believe, the official colour chart declares this as) and a brand new sponsor.

This is it – as seen on the official club site

Move over local taxi firm. No longer do Brentford put the KY into SE….

To read the rest of this article, season 2015/16 is now available to download onto Kindle (and other electronic reading device) in full, as :   Ready. Steady. Go Again. : Brentford FC season review 2015 – 2016

Thanks for reading and all your comments over the course of the season. For now, it’s the annual clean up to make more space on the site for the inevitable follow up. However, ‘close season’ will continue in full, further along.

But wait, like all the best infomercials, there’s more. The last three seasons of the Last Word : Celebrating like they’d won the FA Cup; Tales from the football village and Ready. Steady. Go Again are also available in one combined volume as: 

Brentford Football Club – The Bees are going up. Season reviews: 2013/14, 2014/15 & 2015/16 

We did. And we still are ! 

From the best shirt to the worst – with a video nod to Eric

Over the last 13 months since this column has been running, our reader may have realised I’m somewhat of a Brentford kit nerd. A quick search of this site with the word ‘kit’ will also show pieces on what we, our Championship rivals (and beyond) have worn. Likewise, some of the quirkier efforts through the ages. Hull City AFC and their tiger stripes, the Coventry City T, Spanish broccoli, beer and octopus designs being some of the best.

However, whilst reading a thread on GPG this morning in regards to Brentford shirt, it suddenly dawned on me. I’ve written about our best ever home and, equally, away shirt. There’s also been a piece published on what are, in my opinion, our worst ever away tops.

But I’ve never completed the story by talking about my least popular home effort. Until now.

By and large, our home kit has generally been pretty good over the years and so to compile a top ten or even top five would be, largely, a pointless exercise. That said, two do stand out for me and both are from recent years.

In second place is the 2012/13 effort. On the surface, I really liked this. Thick stripes, a decent shade of red and even a solitary touch of black on the shoulder was a nice touch. Then you turned it over.

Where were the stripes? Not only had they been removed ‘due to football league regulations’ (that, seemingly, Sheffield United were able to circumnavigate) but they’d been replaced by a teabag. Whilst the front of this was standard shirt material, the reverse was some sort of perforated ventex effort. It meant our female fans had their bra straps on display whilst it gave all of us the chance of gaining a polka dot sun tan.

As for the stick on ‘Skyex’ sponsor patch. It was the first appearance of this much maligned piece of low budget kit design – a trend that has continued into the Adidas regime and blighted their, otherwise, sterling efforts.

2012/13 – Fantastic front but that horrible, horrible back. No stripes; just teabags

But that’s nothing, to me, on the previous season’s effort. 2011/12 is, in my opinion, the most awful of all the shirts we’ve ever had.

It’s not just that there are too many red stripes, relative to a classic Brentford shirt, yet not enough to bring it into the cult territory of the ‘funky bee’ 1989 centenary effort. Although that’s a poor start.

Then chuck in the black collars. They’re floppy!!? Think Eric Cantona, but after a few too many Kronebourgs.

The only point of a collar on a football shirt is so as you can stand it up – preferably just at the point of entering ‘Saunder’s territory’. Nothing is more likely to put the wind up the opposition than a midfielder with a known eye for goal, making this final adjustment before striking a free kick.

Cantona shows how a collar, if it has to be incorporated into a football kit, should be treated.

 

So we have too many stripes and a pathetic collar but the ultimate crime is the red shoulder patches and double black trim. Adidas have their famous three stripes, so Puma decide to copy this but go one less. Why?

It’s an awful choice and this entire upper makes us look like hotel doormen. Perhaps some people like it but, personally, I won’t even have this one in my collection.

Talk about Puma seeing out their contract in style. Or lack of .

2011/12 – Marcel Eger models my worst ever Brentford shirt