The9

It works to a certain point - the point being when someone who bought the crap the year before decides if they want to buy something likely to be the same crap again. I don't think anyone can complain about the quality of the Umbro kits within the parameters of football shirts generally - some of the later Saints Apparel ones had one or two "teething troubles" though (nose-breaker collar anyone ?).

Do you have ADD, TDD? Ask a question, get a response, decide you're no longer interested in the discussion...

Do you mean "we do things differently, why do we do that?" or "why do you think we have to do things differently for the sake of it?" ? Or are you specifically referring to changing the kit style ? My basic point is that Cortese seems to like being different for the sake of it, as if there's a "better way", which usually involves large amounts of PR failure and annoying the fans for no reason, then when he realises there's a reason everyone else does things a certain way, the club falls in line with the majority. The photographer ban is another example of this. I believe that the "logic" suggested of changing the kit basically because they're more likely to sell more shirts of a significantly different design because everyone already has a striped shirt is flawed. People will continue to buy shirts of differing striped designs without more or less dumping the stripes altogether. I think it's probably a theory based on the enormous sales of the sash shirt, but that means they've completely misunderstood the reasons for the massive popularity of the shirt - it was a polo shirt lookalike, so people who don't buy shirts but do buy polos bought it. It was a "one-off" anniversary kit which people liked, as it pulled from the club's history and reflected the 125th Anniversary theme. It didn't have a sponsor on it, so people liked it for that reason too, and it came in a season in which we looked like we'd be successful so people bought into that early on as well. None of those factors are relevant now. The red pinstripe kit has no historical basis - not Saints and never has been. It's not a polo/passable leisurewear style, it has a sponsor on it, and there's no more mileage in the idea of a "one off change" because they already did it 2 years ago. Plus we're not likely to win anything next season. The one saving grace of course is that it's our first year back in the Prem, and there's a much bigger potential audience for the kit thanks to all the plastics' renewed interest and a new audience who'd forgotten about us - but as far as branding Saints globally as a team which will regularly wear stripes as part of their identity, it will be a disastrous failure in hooking "new" fans worldwide at the time when interest in the promoted clubs will be at it's highest. Add to that that three of the most globally successful teams are already red shirted, it's not a way of making ourselves stand out, even if Asia does love red kits.

"Ecru". The weird thing about that kit (which clearly piggybacked off Liverpool's Ecru shirt of a year or two before), was that we also had a white away kit at the same time. So we had a red/white home kit, white away (with broad turquoise sleeve stripe) and slightly off-white beige-ish 3rd shirt. Very strange as there was barely any difference in the teams we'd wear the 2nd and 3rd kits against.

Except thanks to this thread everyone knows what the home kit looks like, and we have a reasonable idea that the away is predominantly white. Why wait for it to be released to pass comment on it, when people have already seen pictures?

Here's the table from 6th December 2004, he took over on 8th : http://www.statto.com/football/stats/england/premier-league/2004-2005/table/2004-12-06 We were 18th but 2 points off the bottom and 2 points from 15th.

I for one welcome his ability to add facts to an argument.

Cork's good under pressure so he should be ok even though he's the worst finisher in the squad (including Forecast, probably), whilst Schneiderlin always looked 50% better when he'd just come back from France U-21s, so hopefully he's got it in him to pick up the pace of his passing. Hopeful for both to be ok, but I'd like to see us sign a couple of players who've played in the Prem top half at least semi-regularly to improve the midfield, because on occasion last season both struggled with the far less taxing Championship midfields.

They've also had a plain blue back, but it's probably more due to Puma creating international kits for loads of African nations and catering for the "plain panel" rules than it is anything to do with Reading or moving away from hoops.

No, but then I can tell pretty much any team from looking at the kit for a couple of seconds anyway, as you might expect. Reading's kit only stopped having hoops regularly about 10 years ago, and much as you'd like to lay claim to "hoops", they've had full "hoops" within the last few seasons, as well as regularly until the early 2000s :

You occasionally see "Centerprise" academy shirts floating around on there too. Weirdly I was once offered a full set of the black academy Centerprise shirts for nothing in the Standing Order sometime around 2002 - literally giving them away. Dunno who the woman was, but she had a kitbag full and I wished I hadn't been 120 miles from home and headed to St Mary's for the at the time. Bit of a sod to carry around for 4 hours and up the hill after the train home...!

I usually get one shirt for an anniversary gift nowadays, I used to buy everything when it was only about £70 a year but I've become much more discriminating about it since it became nearer £150, basically I have all the past season's Saints kit, but I had one as a gift, one shirt I bought, got the socks at 1/3 of the price from Sportsdirect.com and I only hoovered up the other shorts and socks the other day when they knocked 50% off everything. So instead of me spending £70 on one full set of kit and having the goodwill to buy everything they ever release, I've spent £7 more in total, split over 2 shirts and don't feel the need to buy any of it next time. Add to that my stubborn refusal to pay to park at the Megastore...

No. I don't like weird kits.

It wasn't an Doncaster is unique, though red and white aren't exactly rare colours. Blackburn and Bristol Rovers, yep, sure, as far as different combinations of the most popular colour and white go. Bradford yes, when they wear stripes, but not when they wear predominantly claret, or predominantly amber. Shrewsbury, ok, when they stick to stripes and don't play in plain blue with yellow. Yeovil is unique if you ignore that hundreds of other sides copy Celtic, QPR and Reading's kits are the same basic style as each other. Watford have the same colour shirts as Norwich and Burton. More to the point, the vast majority of them are the colours they're historically associated with. Rebranding for the sake of it is just... strange.

He's on Talksport, I've already wasted 20 seconds of my life typing this in response, so may as well make it subtle : JUST IGNORE THEM AND THEY'LL GO AWAY.

We haven't got £50m of the £90m unless we get relegated, it's all dodgy maths.

ESPN getting outbid for everything must have been a surprise for them, they were the knights in shining armour last time around when Setanta bailed out and there is still a legal requirement for someone else to get a block of matches to prevent a Sky Sports monopoly.

...or Saints.

More likely that his dog will buy out Mitchell's share.

Thing is, if everyone in the League gets basically an equal chunk of it, it has little impression on the competition within the Premier League - what it has an impact on is the relationship between the Prem and the Football League, and the Prem teams and comparable European leagues (whether directly in UEFA Club competitions or directly in terms of enticing better players by paying more wages). It won't matter to teams who stay in the Prem, it'll just make them more able to recruit mercenaries who are underselling their ambitions for wages at lower clubs, or enable the top sides to win more European competitions. Over time of course it'll also mean the gap between Prem and Championship will continue to reduce, as assuming the parachute payments stay, the drop off in income will be more visible between recent ex-Prem sides with parachute money and their non Prem-funded Championship opponents, rather than within the Prem itself. To a certain extent this was the case with West Ham's spending this season, and though it didn't stop Saints and Reading it was notable that all the previous season's Prem relegated sides at least made the Playoffs.

Yeah, they've had some builders around the bit between the Megastore and the Reception Entrance - though the OS said they'd refurbed some of the corporate lounges recently, so could just be that.

I think it's a disgrace that they've grafted that "look at his face" commentary onto the Best Euros Moments... in Lego video.

It's already crazy that clubs change all of their shirts every single season for no appreciable reason other than money - especially given that it's only around ten years since the government advised that clubs shouldn't change more than every 2 years. I was relatively happy when Saints had a new home kit every 2 seasons and new away and third kits in the alternate years, that seemed reasonable-ish. They get their money, I get a shirt that isn't out of date within weeks and the opportunity to pick up another new kit(s) if I feel like it the following year. How on earth they can justify changing England kits every year now when they only play around 10 matches God only knows. The "new" away shirt which they debuted in Macedonia when Rooney got sent off is now on sale for £15 and he hasn't even finished his suspension yet !

I wouldn't be surprised if the pundit debate turned into one between those who only know Gary Neville as a biased Manc, and those who've actually seen him on Sky's Prem coverage last season. As someone who isn't a Sky subscriber, I have had great difficulty believing he is erudite and interesting when talking about football, but there are a lot of Sky subscribers who've told me he is an excellent and surprisingly unbiased pundit who often adds a fresh perspective on matters. As I said, difficult to accept for someone who only sees him as a rat-faced Manc with a crap pencil moustache making proclamations about the working class from his crystal castle, but that seems to be the consensus.

Good pidgin maths. I don't think we should be spending the parachute payments before we get relegated, I remember another club that did that...