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Pointless Early 2013/14 Kit Speculation Thread


The9

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Apart from the subjectiveness of it all, the simple fact is that we look like various other clubs who will all be in the same/very similar template... which should be of no surprise to anyone really, least of all someone who studies kits to the nth degree like you do. ;) Few clubs have truly unique kits in terms of the design, most are going to be variations on a manufacturers theme.

 

FWIW, if that is the kit, I think it's 'ok', and certainly better than last seasons. Like many, my personal preference would be for stripes, but I also accept that there are only so many ways you can redesign the same thing, and unlike many it seems, I'm quite happy to see alternative styles from time to time.

 

Would you regard 1 striped kit in 5 seasons as "alternative styles from time to time" ? Sounds to me like the stripes are the "alternative".

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It could be a late sample, but the fact it ties in with basically every rumour on this thread gives it credibility. Also, it's not a training top as people keep suggesting, this season's training tops are a different style altogether.

 

Lets hope its an extremely late April fool joke!

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As I established at the time, from the size of the queue to the times people were waiting for, Saints sold about 2000 shirts on the launch day last year. They could have done it without making people queue at the small store, but they wanted to create the impression of demand, so they served from the two tills in West Quay and had people queue out the door, rather than the 4 or 5 at the Megastore which wasn't open that day.

 

Of course "fastest selling" might have just meant our newly chip and PIN enabled card machines (oooh, 21st century technology) were slightly quicker than someone signing a receipt. The utter lack of numbers to support the claim, and the club's hilarious record in massaging numbers for PR purposes (record attendance anyone?), along with the fact a lot of people hate the kit, is the main reason I simply don't believe it.

 

i won't believe anything from the clubs propaganda machine as they have already proved themselves to be liars, the record attendance was absolutely hilarious, first we have the west ham game when they announced the attendance and declared it a NEW CLUB RECORD (when attendance was actually one less) they then found a couple more unaccounted for people and bumped it up!

we then had Liverpool at home declared a NEW PREMIER LEAGUE CLUB RECORD which of course is also wrong.

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I'm not against changing the shirt for a bit of variety - and improving sales - along the same lines as Bayern Munich have done lately with a red and white as the base colours.

 

Thing is, Bayern wore various combinations of mainly red, mainly white and stripes up until the 70s fairly evenly, and were only "all red" from 1973 to the mid 90s when they started rotating it again. There's an historical basis for it. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1d/Overview_over_historical_Bayern_Munich_kits_1.JPG

 

I don't think people have a problem with Saints "occasionally" going away from stripes to have a mainly red shirt, a sash shirt, a Xerox stripe style, a halved or quartered kit or anything else that's got some history, provided the stripes are the predominant style and provided it's clear that the club is mixing it up for SUCCESSFUL marketing reasons.

 

But just changing to "we are red now" is not doing that. It's probably reducing sales if anything - yes people have striped shirts already, but that's what Saints wear and they'll always shift decent numbers. A one season change will move some people to buy a shirt because "it's different", but do it two seasons in a row and where's the selling point then ?

 

The only thing "new" about a second all-red shirt in a row is that this one will be made by adidas. The only logic I can think behind it is that this year's shirt might sell on that fact alone, and a striped shirt NEXT year would then shift numbers due to being striped AND adidas. But that ignores the ability to produce completely different variations of stripes for 3 years and probably shift more shirts overall anyway without us not looking like Saints and not wearing stripes.

 

Plus after 2 years of "red", why would anyone think we'd go back to stripes anyway ?

Edited by The9
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Would you regard 1 striped kit in 5 seasons as "alternative styles from time to time" ? Sounds to me like the stripes are the "alternative".

 

Erm... well for starters I'm not counting, that was more of a general comment about my preferences, and I clearly stated my preference for stripes seperately.

 

But as you raise it, we had the sash kit for 1 season, which was widely regarded as a positive thing, then stripes for our promotion season, and now no stripes this year or next, so that's 1 in 4 if you are counting, isn't it?

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Erm... well for starters I'm not counting, that was more of a general comment about my preferences, and I clearly stated my preference for stripes seperately.

 

But as you raise it, we had the sash kit for 1 season, which was widely regarded as a positive thing, then stripes for our promotion season, and now no stripes this year or next, so that's 1 in 4 if you are counting, isn't it?

 

Not if *I'm* counting apparently. :D I didn't actually say we'd had non-striped kits that often, but yeah, ok, 1:4 then, same principle applies though, only the Saints PR machine would claim that was our predominant kit style.

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only the Saints PR machine would claim that was our predominant kit style.

 

I didn't think they'd claimed anything at all yet... I have no doubt there will be spin of the highest order (which I will, as always, ignore) but I do agree it would be good to know some of the thinking behind their kit design and choice. Just like anything else in life, even if we don't agree, it usually helps if a decision is explained to some extent. It won't happen, but I live in hope as always.

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Zackly.

 

I'm not sure if I've got time or the inclination to recap the ITK comments dropped at various points in the past 1600 posts, but that shirt is in line with basically all of them. We've not just pitched up here 6 months down the line, seen a random photo last night and gone "oh that's definitely the kit then", it is a shirt which reflects everything everyone has been saying about it since our first snippets of info. If I'd seen that in December when this thread started I'd have said "as if".

 

Reasons not to want to believe it :

 

1) Plain red, no stripes

2) Almost exactly an adidas teamwear template on sale for £12.50 a shirt to parks clubs, aside from the one contrast area of material under the arm, which looks exactly like Bristol City and Hearts kits in similar colours

3) Ugly gold badge which doesn't go with anything

4) No sponsor

5) Looks plain like a training top

 

Reasons to believe it

 

1) ITKs have been talking about another plain red shirt for months (and fwiw black/gold/white away shirt with a big V neck), rumour "Cortese likes block colour not stripes" from last season.

2) Adidas laziness in other teams' confirmed kits using teamwear templates

3) Ugly gold badge has appeared on official Saints website and on adidas announcement adverts

4) Rumours that sponsor has been changed a couple of times pre-season and might not be confirmed yet

5) All adidas training shirts so far released have been the same basic template, which isn't this one.

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I didn't think they'd claimed anything at all yet... I have no doubt there will be spin of the highest order (which I will, as always, ignore) but I do agree it would be good to know some of the thinking behind their kit design and choice. Just like anything else in life, even if we don't agree, it usually helps if a decision is explained to some extent. It won't happen, but I live in hope as always.

 

Stop being so reasonable and smash something. :)

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I didn't think they'd claimed anything at all yet... I have no doubt there will be spin of the highest order (which I will, as always, ignore) but I do agree it would be good to know some of the thinking behind their kit design and choice. Just like anything else in life, even if we don't agree, it usually helps if a decision is explained to some extent. It won't happen, but I live in hope as always.

 

Same happened with the Everton crest change. Changed out of the blue, fans reacted and then got an explanation to the reasons behind it etc. Didn't stop people not liking it but got fans and media onside as they listened to the them and reacted in the correct way.

 

No, Everton fans are less unhappy with the change knowing the reasons and explanations behind it etc. It all goes a long way.

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Same happened with the Everton crest change. Changed out of the blue, fans reacted and then got an explanation to the reasons behind it etc. Didn't stop people not liking it but got fans and media onside as they listened to the them and reacted in the correct way.

 

No, Everton fans are less unhappy with the change knowing the reasons and explanations behind it etc. It all goes a long way.

 

The irony of that one being that the actual thing in the middle of the badge now looks realistic instead of a weird stylised non-existent thing in the head of a number of designers which evolved it into something which didn't actually exist over a number of years. They still should have stuck with the motto though, and I'm not entirely sure that the "we'll change it back next year" claim is one that will stick, they'll have (as we have) a year of "this is what it looks like" by then, with the status quo creeping up as acceptance of what is "the norm" increases with time.

 

The concept of inclusion in change management seems to be utterly alien to football clubs, which is the weirdest thing when you consider how many people there are out there with opinions they're happy to share, and the ease of canvassing those opinions en masse nowadays. The only conclusion to draw is that they're just not interested in giving fans the products they'd pay the most money out on, which is bewildering, though widespread in football.

 

"Less unhappy" is not the same as "happy", nevertheless !

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If that leak turns out to be real I'll be quite pleased.

 

Personally I think Stripes were getting stale, I liked last seasons shirt too. Nice to see the club mixing it up a bit.

 

Don't think we're ever likely to see stripes again whilst Cortese's in charge so think you'd all better get used to the idea, fast.

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If that leak turns out to be real I'll be quite pleased.

 

Personally I think Stripes were getting stale, I liked last seasons shirt too. Nice to see the club mixing it up a bit.

 

Don't think we're ever likely to see stripes again whilst Cortese's in charge so think you'd all better get used to the idea, fast.

 

+1.

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Strange how just about everyone always manages to miss the obvious link here though.

 

It doesn't look like an Arsenal kit, or a Liverpool kit or any other club kit.

 

It looks like the Switzerland kit. We are now Switzerland FC.

 

I hated the kit last night. Now I'm feeling neutral.

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Strange how just about everyone always manages to miss the obvious link here though.

 

It doesn't look like an Arsenal kit, or a Liverpool kit or any other club kit.

 

It looks like the Switzerland kit. We are now Switzerland FC.

 

I hated the kit last night. Now I'm feeling neutral.

 

regular_2012switzerlandhomeshirt.jpg

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I'm not sure if I've got time or the inclination to recap the ITK comments dropped at various points in the past 1600 posts, but that shirt is in line with basically all of them. We've not just pitched up here 6 months down the line, seen a random photo last night and gone "oh that's definitely the kit then", it is a shirt which reflects everything everyone has been saying about it since our first snippets of info. If I'd seen that in December when this thread started I'd have said "as if".

 

Reasons not to want to believe it :

 

1) Plain red, no stripes

2) Almost exactly an adidas teamwear template on sale for £12.50 a shirt to parks clubs, aside from the one contrast area of material under the arm, which looks exactly like Bristol City and Hearts kits in similar colours

3) Ugly gold badge which doesn't go with anything

4) No sponsor

5) Looks plain like a training top

 

Reasons to believe it

 

1) ITKs have been talking about another plain red shirt for months (and fwiw black/gold/white away shirt with a big V neck), rumour "Cortese likes block colour not stripes" from last season.

2) Adidas laziness in other teams' confirmed kits using teamwear templates

3) Ugly gold badge has appeared on official Saints website and on adidas announcement adverts

4) Rumours that sponsor has been changed a couple of times pre-season and might not be confirmed yet

5) All adidas training shirts so far released have been the same basic template, which isn't this one.

Yep, got that, but the reason I agreed with justmike is that,

 

1) it's a crappy, blurred photo

2) it shows only part of the shirt, so you can only really tell if some of the details fall in line with what's been said here, basically that it's mostly red

3) until the club reveal the shirt, this is no more the shirt than the mock ups that have been brilliantly created based on info discovered about the shirt. I've really enjoyed the mock ups btw.

 

So, it may or may not be the shirt, and if it is, I can't see all of it, and it doesn't look good laid flat, so I'll just wait and see.

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If this is it (which seems almost certain imo) then I can say I like the design as a shirt.

 

 

For me the main issue for people who don't like it is that again it is all red. All red to most people is just not Saints.

 

To me I quite like last seasons effort but personally I would like to see us continue to mix it up as we have often done over the years. Do I want to ditch stripes? No way.... if anything a little disappointed they are not back this year but it is what it is.

 

Surely if Cortese hated stripes that much then we would have not had the Championship kit? The previously striped kit at the start of the Liebherr era had nothing to do with him though (it was Jim Hone's lot).

 

Stripes often do look a little dated and like a deckchair, but they are a big part of our history.

 

 

I am a little disappointed that a bit more effort has not gone into the kit to make it more bespoke. It is based on the team wear template minus the side paneling and the badge and gold adidas logo (so at least a couple of upgrades I guess), but the collar and sleeves are straight out of the catolgue. Pretty much everyteam has those panels on the sleeves however, it's just that the white highlights them that bit more.

 

I actually think the gold looks really good in the leak and looking forward to seeing up close. Hopefully with Gold numbers which will make it stand out and less like other teams, hoping the AAP3 is in gold/gold white too not black and white as that will look naff with the gold.

 

All will be revealed shortly I am sure. To be honest, not many people will care when the season kicks off.

 

 

My 2 cents worth..... would still love to know where/who the image was from!

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i just read ur letter on football365 colins! I was like oh i knew that colins before he was famous!

 

It seems that two have responded in this afternoon's mailbox arguing to the contrary!

 

Such is the way of these things. Still want the stripes back mind.

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.....which means what in the context of a football shirt design?

 

It means, you need to adapt to survive. The colour Red is a really big deal in Asia and there's no coincidence the how popular those clubs are outside of the UK, especially in the emerging markets like China. We have money now, but we have to rely on the financial backing of the Liebherrs, which won't last forever. So if we want this to continue, we need to accept that some things need to change in order to help create a sustainable infrastructure. Creating a following in Asia should massively help revenue from shirt sales alone. I don't think it's any coincidence that we've seen Tadanari Lee and Yoshida arrive at the club and the introduction of a solid red shirt (Liverpool and Man Utd like) either.

 

So, in a nutshell, I think we should be more accommodating in the management's ideas to help progress the club as a brand and ultimately help ensure that there's a long term future for us in the top flight. I definitely would give up wearing stripes if it meant no more heartbreaking relegation and financial woes.

 

... plus stripes make me look fat.

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It means, you need to adapt to survive. The colour Red is a really big deal in Asia and there's no coincidence the how popular those clubs are outside of the UK, especially in the emerging markets like China. We have money now, but we have to rely on the financial backing of the Liebherrs, which won't last forever. So if we want this to continue, we need to accept that some things need to change in order to help create a sustainable infrastructure. Creating a following in Asia should massively help revenue from shirt sales alone. I don't think it's any coincidence that we've seen Tadanari Lee and Yoshida arrive at the club and the introduction of a solid red shirt (Liverpool and Man Utd like) either.

 

So, in a nutshell, I think we should be more accommodating in the management's ideas to help progress the club as a brand and ultimately help ensure that there's a long term future for us in the top flight. I definitely would give up wearing stripes if it meant no more heartbreaking relegation and financial woes.

 

... plus stripes make me look fat.

 

Have to agree .................... including plus stripes make me look fater ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

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It means, you need to adapt to survive. The colour Red is a really big deal in Asia and there's no coincidence the how popular those clubs are outside of the UK, especially in the emerging markets like China. We have money now, but we have to rely on the financial backing of the Liebherrs, which won't last forever. So if we want this to continue, we need to accept that some things need to change in order to help create a sustainable infrastructure. Creating a following in Asia should massively help revenue from shirt sales alone. I don't think it's any coincidence that we've seen Tadanari Lee and Yoshida arrive at the club and the introduction of a solid red shirt (Liverpool and Man Utd like) either.

 

So, in a nutshell, I think we should be more accommodating in the management's ideas to help progress the club as a brand and ultimately help ensure that there's a long term future for us in the top flight. I definitely would give up wearing stripes if it meant no more heartbreaking relegation and financial woes.

 

... plus stripes make me look fat.

 

So you've swallowed the "be red to be big in Aisa" horseplop, then?

 

Right-ho.

 

Meanwhile, in other news, the reds of Chelsea and Manchester City are well placed to win the Premier League and/or the Champions League next season. With not one single fan in the entirity of Aisa. Not one.

Edited by CB Fry
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So you've swallowed the "be red to be big in Aisa" horseplop, then?

 

Right-ho.

 

Meanwhile, in other news, the reds of Chelsea and Manchester City are well placed to win the Premier League and/or the Champions League next season. With not one single fan in the entirity of Aisa. Not one.

 

Not to mention Barcelona (only half red...), Real Madrid, Juventus....

 

And please, let's not let the 'weight concerns' of others ruin it for the rest of us. ;)

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So you've swallowed the "be red to be big in Aisa" horseplop, then?

 

Right-ho.

 

Meanwhile, in other news, the reds of Chelsea and Manchester City are well placed to win the Premier League and/or the Champions League next season. With not one single fan in the entirity of Aisa. Not one.

 

They're not trying to leverage more from their position, they've already got the audience. Cardiff have the same idea as us.

 

Edit: Chelsea are touring Asia, and they're not doing it to for the food... http://www.chelseafc.com/pre-season-tour-article/article/3066844/title/asia-tour-2013-announced

Edited by wireframebox
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Not to mention Barcelona (only half red...), Real Madrid, Juventus....

 

......and not forgetting we signed Tadanari Lee and Yoshida from Japan where all football kits must be red red red red red red.

 

The Japan national football team do wear one of those funny shades of red though, I must say.

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They're not trying to leverage more from their position, they've already got the audience. Cardiff have the same idea as us.

 

Edit: Chelsea are touring Asia, and they're not doing it to for the food... http://www.chelseafc.com/pre-season-tour-article/article/3066844/title/asia-tour-2013-announced

 

Cardiff have very specific and well explained ideas. Hated, but well explained.

 

I must have missed Cortese's "we're targeting the Aisa market with this kit" explanation. Do pop it up if you can find it.

 

Thanks for proving my point on Chelsea.

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......and not forgetting we signed Tadanari Lee and Yoshida from Japan where all football kits must be red red red red red red.

 

The Japan national football team do wear one of those funny shades of red though, I must say.

 

You've seen the Japanese flag, right?...

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