The9

It wasn't, it was the "fastest selling ever", ever apparently consisting of "since 2009". I'd also assume "fastest selling" consisted of "the tills work more quickly". The issue now for me is the USP for this shirt is "adidas" and not the colour, because the colour is already one that anyone who wanted a red Saints shirt will already have. Actually come to think of it, I already had about 3 predominantly red Saints training tops anyway.

If it meant we got something in stripes, yes, it would be hilarious. Unfortunately this also happened last year, and we worked it out then too.

Funnily enough I nearly quoted when you said that in post 80-something earlier...

No, you've got that wrong, EVERYONE was saying promotion was expected as a minimum, no-one thought otherwise, there couldn't possibly have been people thinking we wouldn't go up. Etc.

They might spill my flask.

Bits I agree with in bold. I have lifelong first club liquidation issues and I genuinely don't think any club wants fans to sit in silence, but other than that, fair enough.

There are 5000+ voting on the Echo website poll with remarkably similar results. Dan Kerins sent me a link. As for the bit in bold, find some other way to get one that doesn't involve buying one from the club - that's how I got around it last season, lucky for me a mate won one. This debacle's actually made me reconsider why I'm even buying the things - and this comes 18 years after I worked for a sports retailer and realised the things cost pennies to make (rip off), sat in a warehouse for a month before going to the shops, sat in another warehouse for months before that, probably got made by child labour and all that kind of stuff, and the year after's designs were already decided (how is it "new"?). This is as much about club identity as just a shirt for me. That's why I'm fine with the rumoured away kit, no history, no tradition, no suggestion that an away kit reflects the identity of a club, it's just an item of sports clothing. The HOME shirt however... the players move on, the stadium evolves, the manager/head coach changes, Chairmen come and go, tactics, heroes, even the badge changes... but the main colours and style of kit? Unless you're selling your soul for the money like Cardiff, they tend to symbolise the club. That red and white striped scarf on the badge will be next...

My missus got one as a wedding present with her new name on the back.

As there's now a leak of the home shirt, would you go so far as to say that is it ?

There are polls on this site and on the Echo website which indicate from a combined sample of 5400 (admittedly not necessarily unique) voters that 60%+ of fans prefer stripes, and that under 10% want Saints to play in a plain colour. If you want to assume that people will buy it "no matter what" when a bunch of people who have previously bought it "no matter what" are on here saying "I'm not buying it", that's your lookout, but I would say a combination of the Echo and Saints sites are pretty representative of the potential market and very accurately reflect the views of the fanbase. That is of course unless you think there "20,000" (love to know where that comes from) fans who buy shirts "no matter what" are also the kind of people who aren't interested in responding to a poll on the same subject... I also seriously doubt that Cortese would argue that he's responding to the majority of customers, I'd be surprised if he even acknowledged their existence.

I just had a quick revisit of the start of the thread and I think it's actually the most popular shirt with the most comments - but I think that's partially because it looks the most like the Xerox shirt without having to be shoehorned into an existing template like I did with the mock up based on this :

Forgot to mention, sash shirts are going for about £70 on eBay. Sealed and bagged with tags should get on for £80+ (which also happens to be the most I've ever paid for my 1987 Saints hummel Denmark home in medium).

Because it's a "Fantasy Kit" in that section of a kit website.

Watford do not play in the Premier League. The Football League's rules are the same as those presented by the FA in the document I linked above, you are allowed more than one sponsor. You are not in the Premier League. I am fully aware that lots of FL teams have shirts with sponsors front and back, and on the shorts too. But it is not permitted in the Prem.

That white with the red sleeves/sides was first posted in post 189, 15th April, actually originated on the Football Shirt Culture fantasy kits forum : http://www.footballshirtculture.com/components/com_joomgallery/img_originals/fantasy_kit_design_1/saints_adidas_20130413_1619591245.jpg

I still think it's weird that so many people seem to like that shirt though. It needs a lot more red around the side to meet my criteria of a Xerox-lite for a start. This is ignoring the whole "old template" thing.

It's that white thing with the red sleeves again. It originated on Football Shirt Culture...

http://www.premierleague.com/content/dam/premierleague/site-content/News/publications/handbooks/premier-league-handbook-2012-2013.pdf A.1.30. “Club Shirt Sponsor Contract” means any contract between any Club and any Person (not being the manufacturer, producer or distributor of that Club’s Strip) providing for the exhibition upon that Club’s Strip of the agreed prime brand of that Person in accordance with Rule M.28; Strip Advertising M.28. Provided that: M.28.1. the content, design and area of the advertisement is approved by the Board; and M.28.2. it complies with the Football Association Rules for the time being in force; advertising on Strip shall be permitted. And from here : http://www.thefa.com/~/media/Files/TheFAPortal/governance-docs/rules-of-the-association/fa-handbook-2012-13.ashx ADVERTISING ON PLAYER’S CLOTHING 2 Advertising on Player’s wearing apparel is permitted providing such advertising complies with relevant regulations as determined by The Association from time to time in force. And here's the FA's convenient guide, which shows you where you can put your logos (inc in the lower leagues) : http://www.thefa.com/~/media/Files/PDF/TheFA/fa_kit_regs_2012_13.ashx Interestingly (to me), the ONLY thing in the Premier League rules which basically says "only one sponsor logo" is the use of " exhibition upon that Club’s Strip of the agreed prime brand of that Person " in the "Club Shirt Sponsor Contract" definition. There's no actual rule which explicitly states "you can only have one sponsor", only a set of implications from only being allowed to have a "prime brand" on the Club Shirt Sponsor Contract.

Turkish is a well-known lover of the Xerox style, I've seen him wear it on probably 15-20 occasions. I've also not seen him actually say that about nutjobs (I think I coined it for this thread, nicked from the real hnutjob thread) or m-boarders in relation to this thread, though I'm sure he's thinking it. FWIW I've been in the Megastore 3 times this season and the only time there was even a queue was during the Liebherr Cup which was in the first week of shirt sales and the first event after the kit launch - that queue lasted until kick off (at which point I went off to see the Olympic flame somewhere in Chapel), and IIRC by the time the first 45 minute game had ended, the store had closed. It does make you wonder. I wouldn't say they're doing particularly well on the merchandising front at all, either - anyway, isn't the question more "how well would they be doing if they actually sold something most people wanted?".

It's ill-informed posts like this which start rumours. MLG I am SHOCKED at you, SHOCKED at not knowing that you're not allowed more than one sponsor on Prem shirts (though they can be different on home and away shirts as shown by Norwich in 2005).

I think the continued existence of striped shirts in the crowd will achieve something near that - but the away kit massively outselling the home kit might make someone look at the figures again. Of course, it could also lead to Saints wearing black and gold as a home shirt for a few seasons... but in some ways at least THAT would be a unique rebranding, as opposed to a lazy "don't like stripes, not having them" kinda decision, which is what this looks like.

I don't think they care about what the fans think about anything - this was fairly evident with various policies long before the Prem money was a factor and convenient excuse. I still find it amazing that people defend Cortese as "running a business", when basically what seems to happen is one person makes a decision and a bunch of people run around trying to excuse it and make it work, in some cases to the tangible detriment to the organisation as a whole. Look at last season's launch - we sussed the marketing of the red shirt / white shirt months before there was even any confirmation those were the kits, and I'd worked out we'd wear the full white kit for precisely ONE fixture before it got to the shops. Totally predictable once "it's all red" was known, and not fooling anyone by trying to pretend it was somehow striped. The white kit being underused was obvious (I didn't buy one for that reason alone, despite preferring it to the home) then (presumably) because everyone realised we'd never wear it, and (presumably) as they still had loads left after Christmas, they shoehorned it into the FA Cup game to try and shift them, and all season we regularly wore the yellow away kit, which the club had sold off at discount as a defunct product only a couple of months earlier ! Not reducing the cost of shirts towards the end of the season is also counter-profit, as it's just dead stock from that point. All of that could have been avoided - if you want to do "red shirt/white shirt" as they did for the marketing, do it for shirts only, have black shorts and white socks on the home kit, and alternate red shorts/black and/or white socks for the away. You get more products to launch, you keep the "theme", you wear the away kit more often because it's clearly designed to work with other combinations of existing kit - we could have worn white/black/black at Arsenal for a start. Knowing that we were allowed a third kit and working out in advance that it may be a good idea to keep selling the yellow kit at full price and maybe get some more would also be an idea given the long-known existence of Stoke and Sunderland who would clash with both shirts. Forward thinking and successful modern businesses (and I know you know this !) are the ones canvassing their customers to build upon their loyalty with feelings of being valued and included in the brand and decision-making, and the really savvy ones are exploiting less obvious income streams by having the customers/fans identify them in the first place. If I'm in charge of the kit process (yeah, I wish) and I look at the Echo and Saintsweb polls saying "60%+ of fans prefer stripes", and then look at the sales figures (presumably) declining year on year for stripes I'm looking at a way to have stripes presented in a new way, not hoping that a chunk of the "stripe preferrers" will join the 9% who prefer a plain colour, because your potential target audience is already being hugely shrunk by the product itself. The elephant in the room here, of course, is that Saints fans LOVE the Xerox kit, adidas currently have something that looks very like it, and yet even if they wanted something that sold which wasn't striped, we still don't get that. That, and the lack of a USP for "red" in a second season, and the risible notion of marketing to Asia only leads to the conclusion that we're in red "because someone said so", not for any marketing reason.

That is quite funny in many ways. A lot of fans prefer shirts sponsorless anyway - certainly the case for "controversial" sponsors, and often with striped kits. As someone who's done a fair bit of ironing onto teamwear kits in the last few years to save a few quid for a club I can only say that selling a DIY patch for £1.50 and letting fans DIY it is a very good way of ruining a shirt. Would be surprised if they didn't just offer a free "iron on sponsor" service, probably in practical terms best done only for people who fork out for name/number/Prem badge printing. Then again, last year they artificially created long queues, so this would suit the photo-op "queue = demand, sheeple" propaganda perfectly.

You mean it says "I think you are spending £47 on a heap of sh1t" ? That is a reasonable assumption, but I don't have a problem with people having a different opinion to me and I'm just as entitled to mine, though I do also think that not buying it is the only way to get the club to even consider changing their apparent current policy. To that end, buying the away kit in huge numbers and not the home might actually work even better.

Speculating on the price based on some clubs' adidas prices last season, could be anywhere between £40 and £55 for an adult tbh. As I didn't buy last season's from the club either I only have vague recollection of the price being somewhere £42-£45 ish.