Prominent member of the Twitter football shirt community @The_Kitsman asked his followers for their controversial opinions on football shirts recently. As usually happens when this question is asked about any topic, many people seemed to confuse the meaning of the word “controversial” with that of “very commonly held and in no way controversial”.
However, there were still a few interesting takes among the replies. We’ve put together ten of them and given our thoughts on each one. Feel free to tell us how wrong you think we are in the comments.
1 - Too Many Shirts, Not Enough Time
Agreed. Nowadays shirts don’t have the airtime to have any real cultural impact, as opposed to in the past when clubs would use the same couple of kits for two or three seasons, therefore hugely increasing the shirt’s chances of being involved in a significant match or campaign.
The constant release of new jerseys combined with the social media hype mean there is always something new to take the spotlight off the most recent flavour of the month. It’s much harder for even the best designs to develop a strong association with a club or player in the minds and subconscious of the fans because of these constant changes.
2 - Smaller Brand = Better Shirt
This is an exaggeration, or perhaps just put too bluntly, but there is some element of truth in this statement. Brands like Hummel and Macron have been producing excellent kits over the last few years, but in reality they sit just below the highest of high end kit makers. The same goes for Kappa and Umbro.
Of course smaller brands are also capable of great work, take Paraguayan sportswear company Kyrios for example, or Salernitana’s current kits made by Zeus, but less established brands can also sometimes lack originality or production/design quality. A better way of wording this one might be “Smaller brands can design kits just as good as the ones from the big names”.
3 - Serial Offenders
While it may be true that Dortmund kits haven’t come near the heights of their mid 90s Nike days, Napoli have had some great kits since the turn of the century. The Diadora shirts with Peroni sponsor from the early 00s spring to mind as some of their more under-appreciated jerseys.
Macron had a few solid efforts and Kappa gave them some simple but effective shirts during their stint too. Even some of the current EA7 gear has something of a cool factor about it, if you can ignore the ridiculous number of releases.
4 - "Grail"
No arguments about the cringiness of the word “grail”, but the same can be said of every other word that has been popularised - or even coined - on the internet. Also, the football shirt community are hardly the only ones to blame in the case of the word “grail”.
5 - Stick To Your Own Club
Strongly disagree here, there are too many amazing shirts out there to limit yourself to one club. Even narrowing it down to one league would be tough (if it wasn’t for the existence of Serie A, surely the home of the greatest proportion of beautiful jerseys).
6 - No Sponsor Is No Fun
We’re going to have to disagree with this one, at least with the use of the word “usually”. Chest sponsors have been a staple of club shirts for more than 40 years now, so in modern times it can be refreshing to see a jersey free of logos. It can be an especially good look if the kit has a design strong enough to stand up on its own without the need for any distractions, and there are probably plenty of fans who’d prefer a blank space over their club’s ugly crypto or betting sponsor.
On the other hand, a run of the mill design can look boring without a sponsor. And then there are those cases of good looking logos that compliment or even complete the look, or the longstanding partnerships that see the sponsor logo become a part of the visual identity of the club. Definitely pros and cons of both.
7 - In It For the Money
Again, some truth in this one, but we don’t agree with everything here. Are club’s robbing their fans for financial gain? Absolutely, no doubt about that. Do fans accept high prices because they want to help their club? In some cases, maybe, but rampant consumerism is responsible for the majority of shirt sales. Most shirt buyers are more concerned with their own appearance and the status that the shirt carries rather than financially contributing to their club.
8 - Modern Shirts vs 90s Shirts
The 90s are considered the golden age of football shirts for many, as the decade saw a lot of experimentation, wild patterns and baggy fits, before the 00s and 2010s saw a more “back to basics” approach to kit design in comparison. The last few years have seen a revival in the use of colour, patterns and outside the box thinking, resulting in a lot of impressive shirts. Maybe in twenty years time, the rose-tinted glasses through which we look back at those 90s kits will allow us to see the current crop of kits in a similar light.
Then again, there is the association of the kits with the era they are from and the way football was experienced and even played at the time, so the nostalgia factor will probably still work in favour of the 90s in that regard. Also, see number one on this list.
9 - Let The Goalies Fit In
For practical reasons, we’re going to say no to this one. Goalkeepers need to stand out from the outfield players and their very different role in the team also warrants a different look, if you ask us.
10 - Keep It Simple
To finish, this gets a hard no (apart from the bit about lasting two seasons, no complaints there). Variety is the spice of life and if clubs insist on pushing out so many new kits so frequently, they can at least try and offer something different each time. The overuse of templates is one of peoples’ biggest gripes with football shirts and a stick that has been used to beat many a manufacturer.
Although, that’s not to say having the same design with different colour combos for home and away kits could never work out well, we’d just vote against it as a general rule.
Now its your turn. What do you think of these Twitter opinions? What about ours? Have you got any more you’d like to share? Comment below.