Can Adidas and Juventus provide inspiration for Brentford?

It’s only Tuesday and I’m climbing the walls already. Say what you want about Real Madrid, Cristiano Ronaldo and The Champions League but their win over Juventus on Saturday at least gave us one final taste of club football. But now that really is it until August. With tumbleweed blowing through Griffin Park at present the wait to see/ hear anything from Brentford seems, as it stands, an interminable one.

It was a final that had it all. Goals, oh those stunning goals. Open, attacking play. Sergio Ramos doing the unspeakable; Cristiano Ronaldo doing the amazing, yet again. No matter how much you want this pantomime villain to fall flat on his face, has there ever been a footballer so full of self-belief in his own ability? So consistently skillful? For every bit of strutting, posing or crying he delivers it back tenfold in goals. It’s amazing to think he is a year older than Wayne Rooney. They linked up for years at Manchester United but whilst one has stagnated and regressed, the other has gone on and on to consistently greater heights.

But we digress. I’m not here to blow smoke up Ronaldo’s backside. The final was the last flicker of a wonderful season that is now consigned to the record books. But it did get me thinking about Brentford whilst I was subsequently sniffing around the Internet, looking up various nuggets of information on the respective teams. Specifically Juventus, whose new kit is causing somewhat of a stir.

Like Brentford, they’ve redesigned their crest for the forthcoming season. Gone are the stripes and the charging bull synonymous with Turin (and a motif that that also appears on the shirt of city rival Torino) . It has been replaced by a simple graphic of a J which apparently took a year to come up with and “Is a symbol of the Juventus way of living”. Got to love a bit of marketing speak.

Personally, I hated it at first but it has grown on me somewhat. Especially compared to its somewhat busy predecessor. Sound familiar? I do wonder if there are any Juve fans who claim it looks more like a letter K?

Like Brentford, Juventus also use Adidas as a technical sponsor and, it would be fair to say, their forthcoming kit is a stunner. Although, for the record, it has no stripes on the back ! It was the picture of this that I saw yesterday which has me salivating.

Images of the new Juventus shirt are now doing the rounds

It is similar to this year’s wonderful Brentford effort, but with a balance of black and white that should have every supporter purring. The round neck collar and button down effect adds a real retro touch whilst the stripes down the side, (which you can’t really see on this picture although the internet has plenty ) are one of the more recent Adidas innovations. But a great one.

So the question is, with this benchmark set how will Adidas fare for Brentford when our own effort is revealed? If I wan’t already keen for Mark Devlin to start his now traditional strip tease before, having seen this I’m now desperate. It’s a thing of sartorial excellence. Ronaldo may have got his hands on the cup but he’ll never look this good.

Is it too much to hope we could have something similar? I remain a huge advocate of our 2016/17 shirt but even I would happily admit that this one, in red and white, would blow it off the (Griffin) Park. So much so that using some cruddy photoshop skills I’ve tried to recreate it just to see how we could, theoretically, look. And apologies for the poor quality, but you try doing this at six in the morning.

Cruddy photoshop but you get the jist. Possibly

As for the away shirt, well if we’re playing fantasy football at present then I would refer you back to another Adidas effort.

This time, that of Real. Although Betis rather than Madrid. Specifically their 2015/16 special to celebrate the week of the Andalusian Woman. One of my favourite efforts in recent years, I’d love to see how this looked with the Brentford badge on it.

It’ll never happen. But one can dream.

It’s green. It’s pink. It’s brilliant

Along with dreaming about kit, the other traditional thing at this time of year is the plugging of the season review e-book. Please. Stay with me – this time around it is for a great cause . All funds raised from downloads of Welcome Home, King Jota are being given to the Brentford FC Community Sports Trust. Likewise, any subsequent sales from the previous versions.

Containing the least bad of the blogs from May 16 to May 17 and a bit of new material too, you can pick it up here. It’s all for a great cause and, hey, you may even enjoy it.

So PLEASE. Do something great to help our club. What else will £1.99 get you? What better way to spend some time on the daily commute, the beach, by the pool or even hiding out in the toilet at work?

For less than the cost of half a pint on match day, it’s the season review that has been designed to fit in your pocket (if you are using an i-phone).

If nothing else, Father’s Day is approaching. Just saying….

Nick Bruzon

Out of tune and out of touch but who looks good in green?

We’ve got a bumper Last Word today. England took on Portugal last night in their final warm up game ahead of EURO 2016. Whilst I promised we’d drop the Brentford ‘green shirt’ stuff, there is an 11th hour addendum from one supporter which Bees fans may find of interest. And on the subject, we look at the top ten green shirts of all time. From Plymouth to Palmeiras and Carlisle to Panathinaikos, can anybody make this under used colour look good?

But first, England. Whereas I’d normally say they “entertained Portugal last night” rather than “took on”, anybody who saw the game will know there’d have been more entertainment in an episode of Hale and Pace (kids, ask your dads. Actually, don’t. Spare them the pain).

The 1-0 win at Wembley was an experience that many found uninspiring, out of touch with the occasion and somewhat flat. An indication of the pain that awaits supporters over the next few weeks unless something changes and fast. ITV nailed it, by accident, in the commentary with the observation that, “This is Dier”.

But enough about the England supporter’s band.

Look, it wasn’t the best game by any stretch of the imagination. The red card for Bruno Alves, channelling his inner Eric Cantona with a crazy challenge on Harry Kane, hardly helped proceedings as both teams had to adjust to playing 11 on 10 for most of the game. If you want a full match report then, as ever, other sources are the place to go. However, if you want a full match report in two tweets then we’ve got it here c/o DJ’s Andy Bush and Conor McNamara.

I’m still no closer to knowing who Roy will start with against Russia next Saturday but at least we can now look forward to the tournament with no other distractions. The one week countdown is underway, the wall chart is on the fridge and Will Grigg is, apparently, still on fire (if he manages to score, ‘that song’ is just going to become interminable).

After that, the rest just comes naturally. Sit back, grab a beer, prepare the ‘butt groove’ in the sofa and enjoy a month of bonus football that we wouldn’t get in a normal ‘closed season’. Hey, if nothing else it might distract from endless rumours and talk of “Bees boss set for double transfer swoop”. All being well, it might even extinguish Will Grigg. No offence to the former Bee but I’m half expecting ‘that band’ to add ‘that song’ to their repertoire.

Next up, Brentford. More specfically, the  last word on our wearing green (unless, of course, somebody actually manages to unearth a picture of that adidas shirt). Supporter   Geoff Buckingham has been in touch about when, and why, Brentford first wore this most unusual of colours :

It was due to a motor coach not turning up !

It happened in the grim days of January 1974, when the club were close to bottom of The Football League, the country was gripped by the Miner’s Strike and ‘The Three Day’ week, and funds at Griffin Park were very tight indeed. To make matters worse, on a freezing cold 12th Jan.the Brentford team coach did not show up at the meeting point for the trip to bottom of the table Doncaster Rovers.This meant a hurried change of plan, and the players had to quickly sort out cars and drive themselves up to Doncaster. 

If that was not bad enough, one of them, winger Barry Salvage, got nicked for speeding on the return journey. As for the kit we had to borrow them from Slough Town FC. The shirts were indeed green, but with pink numbers on the back!

Anyway, the green shirts brought Brentford a bit of luck as the Bees won the match 2-1 , with a brace from ex Bognor Regis deckchair attendant Andy Woon ( you could not make this up,could you?!)

That win, in front of 3009 perishingly cold spectators, was Brentford’s only victory in a 14 game spell. But it was enough to lift the Bees up to third from bottom, and was actually a crucial two points, as we finished the season just two points above the Division 4 bottom four re-election places! 

Thanks, Geoff. And no more so than because talk of pink and green allows me to get out the industrial sized crowbar as we segue into : ‘the top ten green shirts of all time’.

This, a research topic I’ve undertaken simply down to the fact that, whilst most Brentford fans seemed quite keen on the idea (if you believe social media), one New Road observer contacted me to say: “Glad we’re not getting the hideous green kit this season but seems nailed on for next time.”

Is green hideous?   Unusual, for sure. But hideous? It’s one view and who am I to judge? Instead, let the world of football fashion be your guide….

Carlisle away 1993

10) Carlise away 1993. Accused by many of resembling a deckchair, this cult classic even has a hint of red and white. If Matthew Benham and co are keen on the green, could this give inspiration for 2017? Bonus points always awarded for anything made by the much missed ‘Matchwinner’

 

 

Mexico 1996 – wow

9) Mexico 1996. It’s one thing having some discreet design added to your shirt but Mexico didn’t hold back on the subtly when it came to embracing their heritage back in 1996. It’s bold, I’ll give you that. I love it!

 

 

 

La Hoya – delicious design

8) La Hoya Lorca 2013/14. We’ve featured the Spanish lower division side’s kit on these pages many times over the years. And rightly so, given they’ve modelled it on the broccoli that signifies their agricultural heartland.

 

 

 

Green Arsenal?

7) Hibernian 1989/90. It’s made by Adidas and it just looks awesome.

 

 

 

 

 

St. Etienne add a certain, I don’t know what but it’s good

6) St. Etienne 1981/82. How can you honestly say this isn’t stylish? I’ll even forgive the non-matching collar and cuffs, such is the French chic on offer in this classic Le Coq Sportif template.

 

 

 

 

classic adidas

5) Palmeiras 1979/ 80.  The boys from Brazil kept it simple for this adidas effort. But then again, why mess around when simple equates to style?

 

 

 

 

 

Plymouth show that green can look good

4) Plymouth 1984/85. Much like the Palmeiras effort although with the addition of the discreet pinstripe that just screamed ’80’s football shirt’

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Modern is good, too

3) Panathinaikos 2008/09. Another Adidas shirt. Another stunner. Even the sponsor and other branding is done sympathetically

 

 

 

 

It’s green. It’s pink. It’s brilliant

2) Real Betis 2015/16. We love women on these pages. Not in a mysogynistic style but more to celebrate how at Brentford we have such a diverse fanbase. So it’s nice to include a wonderful effort from Spain as Betis took things one step further than even the Bees, creating a special shirt in order to celebrate the week of the Andalusian Woman.

 

 

My favourite green shirt of all time

1) Cameroon 1990. Roger Milla. Upset after upset as the Indomitable Lions almost got to the semi finals ahead of England. That foul by Benjamin Massing on Claudio Cannigia. Oh, and one of the most iconic shirts in World football. Adidas have done it again.

 

 

 

Nick Bruzon

Plug time (regular readers know the score from here) : 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.

Thanks for reading.

Its all about the kit, man. And the Bees.