With Brentford having now launched next season’s home and away kits, thoughts have turned to other clubs and what they’ll be turning out in. From Newcastle United to Watford there are certainly what we could call some ‘eye catching’ designs out there. And there’s interesting news on the sponsors front where we also have further update from Hull City AFC, amongst others, who of course featured in yesterday’s column regarding their proposed name change. Not to mention a missed opportunity at Griffin Park…..
But first, kit. Brentford’s new shirts seem to have been universally well received.
This is ours – as seen on the official club site
Looking further afield, the same is not necessarily true and where I mentioned ‘eye catching before, perhaps eye gouging would have been a more appropriate term. Whilst not every club has shown it’s hand, enough have – revealing some true horrors – that we can already put together a top five of 2015/16’s worst home kits.
5: Dagenham & Redbridge. The Daggers have been traditionally red, sometimes with blue offset, and twice previously have gone for both colours in stripes. They’ve gone down this route for a third time but what a mish-mash. One red sleeve, one blue sleeve and then the alternate blue stripes are of ever decreasing width from left to right as you look at it. And they’ve got a new badge – with some daggers on it (the modern equivalent of our funky bee?)
The Daggers looking anything but sharp
4: Bradford City AFC. This is one team who haven’t been afraid to mix it up in the past. They’ve had some truly brilliant/bonkers takes on the claret and amber over the years. That said, this takes things to another level. You should wear a football shirt to, erm, play football in. Not to play chess, on.
Come for the football; stay for the draughts
3: Newcastle United: I feel sorry for Newcastle. Their black and white stripes are probably one of the most iconic designs in football. A style recognised the world over and, as such, to overly mix things up must be a tough job. They tried it last season with a broad black yoke and they’ve tried it again this year with the addition of blue (something that has very rarely featured). Everywhere.
From the morally dubious sponsor to the collar and cuffs, things begin to get a bit distracting. Then we have the black stripes themselves, which have had additional diagonal blue stripes added in to the lower half. Less mixing things up and more throwing things up.
White, black and blue – the traditional Newcastle colours
2: Cambridge United I’ve gone for this but it was a tough call. I could just has easily have picked Crawley Town. Both clubs (like the high viz Huddersfield United ‘away’ have adopted one of Puma’s half and half templates.
This is the shirt equivalent of one of ‘those scarves’.
Presumably the template was added to their catalogue to make up the numbers yet, incredibly, these three clubs have all picked it. The right hand side sees the traditional club colour. The left sees that colour interwoven with black diagonal stripes of varying width between them.
Crawley have already announced they are sticking with this for two seasons – their model looks suitably embarrassed at this though.
As if relegation hadn’t been bad enough
However, Cambridge scoop the prize – simply, because they’ve used a hashtag to justify it. Regular readers will know of my disgust for such things, and whilst it isn’t #novemberkings, we aren’t too far off in the crap marketing stakes.
Terrible kit – and a hashtag
1: Watford. I had nothing but congratulations for Watford and their supporters when they got promoted from the Championship last season. I have nothing but commiserations for Watford and their supporters about what the team will be wearing in the top flight.
Subtlety and tradition have gone out of the window. Instead of the yellow with black and, sometimes, red trim they’ve opted for hoops. Lots of hoops. Whilst these may be in black and yellow, there are so many that, and of such differing thickness, as to make Dagenham’s shirt suddenly seem discreet. And, like Cambridge before them, there’s a slogan (thankfully no hashtag, yet).
To make it worse though, Watford’s appears to be a bespoke effort. Somebody has actually chosen and designed this. Maybe it is meant as a ‘hornet’ style but, as a traditionalist, if you want comedy then that’s what the change kit is for. At least the U’s could hide behind a template.
Presumably the tickets at Vicarage Road will come with a warning that the strobe effect from watching Watford running around could cause seizure.
When bad marketing meets bad design, you get this
As a side note, I also promised some updates on the sponsorship front. Hull City AFC has recently announced a tie in with Flamingo Land. I’m really hoping they follow their stunning ‘tiger stripe’ efforts of the early 90s with a similar pun related, flamingo style away kit when that gets launched. And congratulations, by the way, as their proposed name change to Hull Tigers was, again, kicked into touch yesterday – this time at a meeting of the Football Association Council.
Hull City owner Doctor Assem Allam had always promised to throw his toys out of the pram (not literally, although who knows what he gets up it in his spare time) and walk away if he didn’t get his way. So will he be true to his word or will the lure of being a club owner remain too much and he’ll just hope everybody now forgets about his threat.
In a very brief statement on the official club site he told supporters, “We always knew that following a change to the FA’s policy, the chances of changing the name were slim but we also feel it is important to fight for what you believe in and we believe that being called Hull Tigers would be the best strategy for the future.
We will be taking some time away from the Club to consider our options and we will make no further comment until we have come to a conclusion.”
Given his option had been categorically stated previously – give me what I want or I’m going – my money is on him sitting tight, possibly under the guise of ‘not being able to find a buyer’, and then hoping all this blows over. But hey, what do I know – I’m just the numpty on the terrace.
Could Flamingos borrow from Tigers – with or without Dr Allam ?
Getting back to shirt sponsorship, sad news reaches me that the iconic association between Rainham Steel and Scunthorpe United has finally come to an end. As comedian Dave Gorman once said (or words to eh effect of): you can tell a true football fan by saying two words: Rainham Steel. Then watch for the reaction – it’ll either be glazed confusion or the utterance of the name Scunthorpe United.
Whilst I can’t knock them for giving over their shirt to a charitable cause – the battle against Prostate Cancer – it still marks the end of an era as recognisable as Brentford and KLM or Arsenal and JVC.
And finally, just as Brentford have changed their sponsor to Matchbook.com, Bury have changed theirs too. Given everything that happened at Griffin Park last campaign, how wonderful if Matthew Benham had, somehow, been able to negotiate a deal with the Shakers’ new partner.
Just think of the reaction if we’d had this across the red and white stripes.
Football truly is a village
Nick Bruzon
BrentfordFC 
The five big questions of the day as more transfers are announced
16 AugBrentford travel to Bournemouth today for our first Championship away game of the season. With a full house expected at the Goldsands stadium there’ll be plenty to talk about on the train down for the travelling fans.
Just who on earth will start in the Brentford midfield?
How will Bournemouth cope without the awesome firepower of former Bee, Lewis Grabban?
To read the rest of this article, season 2014/15 is now available to download onto Kindle (and other electronic reading device) in full. Containing additional material and even some (poor) editing, you can get it here for less than the cost of a Griffin Park matchday programme or Balti Pie.
Thanks for reading and all your comments over the course of the season. For now, I need to make more space on the site for any follow up. However, ‘close season’ will continue in full, further along.
Tags: 2013/14, 4-0, 6-6, Adam Forshaw, Alan Judge, Alex Pritchard, Arsenal, Barcelona, BBC, Bees, Beesotted, blog, book, Bournemouth, Brentford, Brentford FC, Capital One cup, cardiff City, celebrated, Celebrating like they'd won the FA Cup, Championship, Charlton Athletic, Cherries, Clem, comments, Dagenham and Redbridge, Dave Kitson, Dave Whelan, david button, diary, Eddie Howe, England, FA Cup, football, footballer, Goldsands, Griffin Park, Harlee Dean, ITV, Jake Reeves, James Tarkowski, Jon Toral, Jonathan Douglas, José Ignacio Peleteiro Ramallo, Jota, just don’t mention that penalty, kindle, Leroy Rosenior, Lewis Grabban, Manish, Manish Bhasin, Marcello Trotta, Marcos Tébar Ramiro, Mark Warburton, Marl Clemmit, Matthew Benham, Mi aerodeslizador está lleno de anguilas, Moses Odubajo, My hovercraft is full of eels, Natalie Sawyer, Nick Bruzon, Norwich City, penalty, Rotherham, Russell Slade, Sam Saunders, Sky bet Championship, Spain, Spaniard, Spanish, Steve Claridge, Stuart Dallas, The Football League Show, Toumani, Trotta, Uwe, Uwe Rösler, Warbs, Wigan, Wigan Athletic, Wolves