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Kit for Tat

The 125th anniversary kits are not quite of the quality hoped for

13 July, 2011 10:00 20 comments
Kit for Tat

New crest – How long before yours peels off?

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Amidst all the transfer (non) news doom and gloom surrounding Ashburton Grove, I’m taking solace from gazing at the 2011 Gooner Calendar which is packed full of happy memories of former heroes sporting some very smart Arsenal strips. There’s a teenage looking Bergkamp in one of the early Nike kits and the magnificent yellow shirt with blue sleeves forever associated with that magical “It’s up for grabs now!” evening at Anfield in May 1989.

It’s a reminder that The Arsenal have two iconic strips – the classic red shirt with white sleeves (plus always red socks please, white socks might help to pick out your own players for a pass but they are weak looking) and the yellow change shirt, with the 1970/71 (think Frank McLintock & Charlie George) and 2003/04 shirts being my favourites.

Why is it then that we Gooners keep having these horrible blue change kits foisted upon us by the Club season after season? If there’s any truth in the oft repeated line – “blue goes really well with jeans” then watch out because a red and white shirt hardly goes with jeans either does it? If that all sounds a bit too “Gok Wan” for you, then let me assure you I am making a serious point. If, in this forthcoming season, the merchandising talents at Arsenal and Nike feel our passion about Arsenal’s proud heritage is such that we must own a 125th anniversary home AND away shirt, why do they keep ignoring our truly iconic kits featuring yellow shirts and blue shorts?

I know there are bigger reasons for discontent with the Club out there in the Goonersphere but I’ve been miffed for several years about the apparent lack of care that goes into The Arsenal’s range of kits. Looking around at other teams, fans everywhere are universally stitched up with rapid successions of new kits (look, if you can stomach it, at the Spuds’ sick inducing choice of strips for 2011/12 – 3 entirely new kits!). Conversely, clubs like Merchandise United manage year after year to retain their classic club colours (smart red shirt with white/blue change shirt with a hint of evil Roy Keane noir occasionally tossed in) and despite mocking their name, they seem to get Nike to produce lots of quality training and leisure wear which (gritted teeth) adds to the all conquering appearance they take great effort to maintain at all times (take note Arsene and Ivan). Ditto for Cesc’s suitors over at Camp Nou who retain their famous red and blue design through the years, albeit next season’s offering looks like the stripes have run in the wash.

We Gooners on the other hand keep having dodgy kit after dodgy kit launched at us. I’ve gradually grown to like the new home shirt with that exaggerated club crest surrounded by oak leaves with cluster. However, on closer inspection, the crest is not the classy embroidered badge it should be given you are paying somewhere north of £39.99 to own it. Instead, the crest is some nasty, vulcanised rubber, iron-on transfer thing that you might see on some of those knock off shirts being flogged up and down Oxford Street to gullible tourists. Arsenal’s heritage is all about remaining a class act and a cut above other football clubs. These new strips and certain design elements within them are hardly in keeping with those fine traditions.

I think I’m resigned to accepting all the money making machinations at boardroom level which Arsenal are prioritising nowadays but if only someone there would put a little more care and pride into the quality and design of the kits (and I’m hoping Nike lavish as much love upon the Arsenal designs as they appear to do for United and Barca) then The Arsenal would sell a whole lot more kit and would make even more money.

We all splash the cash on the shirts because we love Arsenal and our proud heritage. Please don’t take our custom and loyal support for granted.

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20
comments

  1. Andrew Cohen

    Jul 16, 2011, 13:34 #10023

    If you go into one of the em****es **** rooms there is a vast chamber flanked with two huge metal curtains. One has Herbert Chapman's face on it (fair enough), and the other Mr Wenger's. Over the door there is emblazoned in huge letters "FORWARDS". One can't help worrying that what they really mean is "VORWARTS". Apart from disturbing totalitarian overtones and the similarity of the new crest to the East German state badge, the only reason for changing the crest to the toy cannon on an orange field in the first place was because of a case we lost in the High Court regarding piracy of the club crest by unauthorised manufacturers. Given that we apparently don't sell that many shirts anymore, is there any reason why our players can't go out and play with a single artillery piece on the chest as per 1971 ? Less is more. I wouldn't buy the plastic shirts anyway when the genuine classic cotton article is readily available. The truth is that the club just takes the money and don't care about making the team play in a kit as hopeless as our defence. The only people the kit is important to is the fans, and, as we all know, we don't count for much.

  2. ArseMart

    Jul 15, 2011, 9:48 #9972

    At least it's not bloody white.

  3. Sean, Cork, Ireland.

    Jul 14, 2011, 19:21 #9964

    Let me get this right...er...you saw the new dodgy home kit...had reservations when you saw the poor quality ironed on crest...YET you still bought it?! MUG!

  4. Andy

    Jul 14, 2011, 12:38 #9942

    The blue kit is awful , Vote with your wallet and don't buy it and wear the retro yellow kits from the 70's to games and maybe the club will get the message.

  5. West

    Jul 14, 2011, 11:48 #9937

    I want an embroidered badge. I want a white band around the top of a red sock. I want a white collar.

  6. Brigham

    Jul 14, 2011, 9:10 #9928

    I personally think that the Arsenal marketing people are utterly clueless. The away kit has no connection with Arsenal at all, never will do and I would love to know whose barnpot idea it was to come up with the 'Braveheart' style shirt - "You will never take ALL of our money!" The Mancs have marketing people who could sell ice to Eskimos, rice to the Chinese and the News of the World to anyone who has had their phone hacked! We on the other hand seem utterly clueless in comparision to them and it never fails to irk me with our crap shirt designs. Anyone remember the 'Fly Emirates' print on the 2006 shirt which came off far too easily, another marketing greatness from AFC Clueless.

  7. GaryFootscrayAustralia

    Jul 13, 2011, 23:18 #9925

    If it's meant to be a kit celebrating 125 years of the club's history, you would have thought the modern version of the classic 70's kit - in other words,last season's - would have been appropriate, with the change being the old style cannon and "Victoria Concordia Crescit" on the badge...but I've never worked even half a day in Arsenal PLC's fashion / marketing department, so what would I know about it?

  8. Kevin Kong

    Jul 13, 2011, 22:00 #9924

    im still hating that `new` Cannon

  9. JM - LONDON

    Jul 13, 2011, 21:42 #9922

    Yeah, we know the club are driving the commercial side of things (they played n the new away kit in Malaysia today)and are always keen, like most other clubs these days, to push the new kits when they can get away with it. Sometimes though it involves changing to any old/different colour just to capitalise on the 'I want one of those' brigade who just have to have them. I'm not knocking these people cos I've been a member of this fraternity for a long while now, and some of the more recent designs havent been that bad, I think we would all agree that the 2006 'Final Salute' redcurrant shirt was a clear winner (anybody know where I can pick one up now?). But last seasons away kit was just dreadful quality and just really didnt look 'Arsenal', and I never really get the creases out of it from the day I bought it cos its made from 17 tractor tyres or something. Once again, it seems that due to a loss of touch with the core fan base that the club are about to lose out again - I wont be buying this year cos the shirt is (again) ridiculously over overpriced and franky, looks bloody dreadful!. Personally I have in the past tended to go for the away shirts, on average I buy maybe 6 of these a season, 2 for me, 2 for my Dad and a couple of others as gifts, this year instead I will go for the plain polo shirts sold by the club at a third of the price, they only really get worn at home games so they should comfortably and smartly last a couple of seasons as the basic designs like our traditional red/yellow kits are timeless. Frankly, that new away kit might as well be Black Watch tartan, In fact that would be better and I might actually buy one for my Dad (a Scotsman who first graced Highbury in 1958!, and who still bemoans the 50 pence a pint he had to pay in the old North Bank bar to this day!). Ands yeah, that new crest looks just awful.

  10. storrmin571

    Jul 13, 2011, 20:23 #9921

    What's wrong with the kits? Didn't you know Arsenal didn't exist before 1996? Let's have our club back before it gets too late.

  11. BNG

    Jul 13, 2011, 17:33 #9918

    I reckon it should say SIDEWAYS as the motto instead of FORWARD...........after the 6.5% season ticket rise i've decided not to buy either of the new shirts and the club can poke the programmes as well

  12. RDT 4

    Jul 13, 2011, 16:27 #9915

    The two kits are the worst there's ever been and I refuse to touch either with a bargepole. The silly flowers around the badge are a naff marketing gimmick, and the blue looks like some sort of spuds/chelsea abomination. As for 125 years, who gives a rat's a***?

  13. Nugs

    Jul 13, 2011, 13:54 #9912

    @huge loaf our away kit should be yellow shirts,socks and blue shorts end of.

  14. Inside Man

    Jul 13, 2011, 13:18 #9907

    Like yourself I'm simply turned off by the blue away strip which serves of no histroical value or representation of club colours whatsoever, i remember being just as digusted with the blue away strip launched in the late 90's. One point that i do wish to raise is that having worked at the club in a retail capacity from the summer of '96 through to '02 there was always a strong demand from supporters for the home and away shirts and i distinctly remember that on 'Kit Launch' days there were queues that started at the front of the store at Finsbury Pk. Station and stretched across the front of the station and up Stroud Green road and that was BEFORE the shop even opened. The latest kit launch on the back end of another season, that failed to deliver upon expectations, failed to even raise a queue of more than a handful of people and the store is praticaly empty aside from the odd customer and Finsbury Pk. vagrents that stumble into the shop once every now and then. Obviously the heady double winning days under Wengers reign are consiged to the histroy books but the demand for the club shirts back then with STAR names such as Pires, Henry, Vieira, Adams, Ljunberg, Overmars printed on the back was unprecendented, shirts would fly off the shelves like hot cakes and within 2 days most sizes had sold out be it adults or kids. Walk into the Arsenal store today and you'll be presented with racks upon racks of pre printed unsold shirts with the names of Gibbs, Song, Chamakh, Cesc (yes Cesc even though we will be selling him!) and Arshavin. There's a reason why no one is buying those shirts and it's not just because we are producing blue away strips. The star dust and magic of players of yester year have gone and haven't been replaced with equal quality. Not for one second can I imagine any 10 year old, or adult come to that, being excited about buying a new shirt with Gibbs or Song on the back. Taking a walk around the store recently and looking at these unsold shirts with the first team names on depressed me and in a way it relfects how our star has fallen over the last 6 years on and off the field. We are light years behind the retail strategies of clubs like Barcelona and Man Utd etc but to be honest if we are to compete off the field in terms of licesing & merchandising with them then it starts with achieving success on the pitch and thats through winning trophies and adding star players (be it with skill or determination) that will bing back the faith in supporters and drive them to start buying the shirt in their droves with the star players of today on the back. Wenger has less than 8 weeks to right the wrongs of the present squad in the transfer market and he has one last season to restore the faith and pride in supporters by showing that AFC can once again compete for honours. Over to you Arsene.

  15. Brigham

    Jul 13, 2011, 12:57 #9903

    The new home kit is awful and I for one will not be parting with any of my hard earned to own it. As for the blue kit, give me strength pleeeeaasssee.

  16. Huge loaf

    Jul 13, 2011, 12:45 #9901

    Our away kit should be the home in reverse. White body red sleeves and red shorts !

  17. Richard Ansell

    Jul 13, 2011, 12:27 #9900

    The dodgy kits go very well all our dodgy players! I do agree with you about our two classic home and away kits - the yellow and blue especially as it always reminds me of 1971 and 1989. Sadly the modern Wenger Arsenal do not seem to care much for tradition, it is all about making money. I don't recognise the kits or the namby pamby players we have as the Arsenal I used to know.

  18. KevGman

    Jul 13, 2011, 12:08 #9898

    Totally agree, New "Crest" = CRAP New away shirt "SH*T" I refuse to buy the new Home Shirt (coz of Crest) No chance of even thinking of Away Shirt either. Have to wait now to see what comes out in couple of years. Where is this all going...........................

  19. Bill

    Jul 13, 2011, 11:55 #9896

    Agree that white socks look weak and rubbish on the home kit, Wenger thinks too much. Should be red every time, leave the shandy socks to the ****e from down the road.

  20. Ron

    Jul 13, 2011, 11:41 #9895

    The new blue away kit is apt and designed with foresight. It resembles a Wycombe W shirt and one or two other lower Clubs outfits. As Wenger seems to have a mission to drop us a few levels its right that the kit should look like a lower league Clubs garb. Lets be honest, we have a few players in that sqaud who are more than well equipped to player lower league football, so lets dress them accordingly.