The9

We have a winner ! Well, at least you have a semi-decent reason for it.

Please point us to the "months of bickering"... incidentally, until the club announced yesterday that the sponsorship had just started, everyone had assumed it was already under way (as indicated by the links on the OS and aap3's website for the previous 3 months). Still, could be worse, we could know what it looks like, and it could be the new England goalkeeper's shirt : http://ridiculousfootball.blogspot.com/2011/07/have-hart.html

In that case they've got three weeks to decide one and get the Thai sweatshoppers to fire thousands of them out and deliver them to the club ! I suspect this is not the case, and there are piles of the home and away already sitting in a warehouse - somewhere. When I used to work in a sports retail distribution centre we had them delivered for circulation to stores a good week before the launch date, and that would be after the manufacturer had them sitting in a warehouse first. Saints don't really have that kind of distribution as the 3 stores are the only place to get them except online, but Gecko mentioned earlier in this thread (much, much, earlier) that from his experience in the design process with Saints (and Umbro, though not at the same time), they can turn around a design in about a month. Equally, most brands have catalogues which go to retail buyers a good 9 months in advance with this season's styles in them, so a lot of them are predetermined long in advance. Actually when Man U announced they were dumping their grey kit in the aftermath of the Dell 3-1 (13 April '96) we not only shipped previously unseen quantities of the grey kit at £10 each in the following fortnight, we also had the replacement "plain white" shirt through the RDC and out to stores long before the end of the season for them to wear from then until the end of 96/97, and that clearly didn't even exist prior to the grey shirt Dell match, so Umbro can certainly shift a kit at short notice if need be.

Actually they didn't, it's been on the Official Saints page on Facebook (along with the new ball). Seriously. And they haven't even bothered putting it on the OS proper.

Well, that would depend on whether that market exists. If not, it's a fairly stupid way of finding out.

Not going to happen, the black shirt is definitely a one-yearer, has the Anniversary badge on it, and "125th Anniversary Season 2010/11" embroidered on the reverse of the little Umbro triangle at the bottom of the side seam. Plus the kit contract is for all one-year kits for the entire term. The only rider to the statement above is that the first Umbro striped shirt was for two seasons, basically due to Saints being in admin and a combination of factors stemming from that (we probably couldn't afford to market it or to buy the stock up front, remember we resorted to red socks and shorts on the charcoal grey away kit because we ran out of the grey stuff in around March) - and even then we still launched a new away shirt once the takeover was completed. The lack of away shirt mentions is becoming typical of the club's lack of communications policy as well.

Don't be. Actually, I bought the last football kit I saw that had ****s on it. (I said I wouldn't discuss it remember)... but I was going to that country to watch the event it was being worn in. Pretty sure there are a few Puma kits for African nations with the motif subtly in the weave too, like Ghana's... but ANYWAY, not happening, not discussing !

To be fair it is quite trivial, and most of the discussion is about potential designs we'd like to see (and not to see), as well as what all the other Umbro clubs are wearing which will give us a decent idea of what to expect. There are also one or two nuggets from ITKers, and I'd like to think it's less prone to thread drift than any other thread on SaintsWeb as well, especially when there's sod all else to discuss. When it comes down to it, I don't really care what Saints wear as long as it doesn't make the players look or feel stupid and it's vaguely identifiable as Saints - whether I'd pay £42 (£47 in my case as I buy long sleeves) to buy it is another matter.

We have been warned !

I think the multi-coloured flag thing on the England shirt is absolutely appallingly naff, and a spurious reason for a terrible design concept which basically allows them to say "THIS designer was involved" and keep all the egos happy. Because the plain (Saints sash style) polo shirt that preceded it is infinitely superior. Problem we're getting now is that all the major brands have done simplicity to death, and have to reintroduce superfluous gimmicks in order to shift fans away from the classic designs we've had recently which the vast majority like for the traditional look. You can already see Nike's "thick/thin stripe" motif resulting in abortions like the Celtic quartered away or the hideous new Barca home where there's really no need to overcomplicate, but we're stuck with the need to change everything on an ever more frequent basis, to meet the clubs' demand for cash.

It's interesting to note that this thread, where you'd expect to find anyone remotely interested in the kit and DEFINITELY the target audience, appears to be completely lacking in genuine "I pre-ordered" posts so far. Of course the other thing is that Saints have previous years' pre-order figures as well, so they can see how poorly this one does relative to all the seasons where the kit has been known prior to the first day of sales. It does seem to be generally in line with the season ticket policy of delaying news for ages, acting like nothing's going to happen, then announcing something will happen on a date that's even later than expected, not really bothering to spend much time promoting it, and assuming people will somehow find their way to buying anyway. It all seems very misguided. As other people have said, it's almost as if they don't want the income.

Yeah yeah... nice try !

Fortunately they're not stars, they're small crosses of St George in various different colours, "to illustrate the multiculturalism of England". It was a daft design concept, by Peter Saville, though you can actually get limited editions of that England shirt entirely covered in them if you want ! The only "stars" ever on Umbro shirts are the one symbolising title wins. The "does it have stars" thing is such a desperate bit to be viral and is so patently untrue I'm not going to even mention it beyond this sentence. It's just stupid. Forty two quid, however... is pushing it. I usually buy long-sleeved just because I prefer them and they're a little more limited, but that's FORTY-SEVEN quid. Stick a name and number on the back and it's a frankly ridiculous £54 for something which has a shelf life of approximately 12 months and ceases being "aspirational" the second you see someone else with one (which is always the morning of the release).

It is honestly some of the stupidest thinking I've seen in some time from the club. Maybe they're just trying to get a picture of how many people will literally buy anything with a Saints badge on it, to go with the numbers they have from last season of people who'll buy a well-designed, unique sponsorless shirt. Both those figures will give them a pretty decent set of customer information to make future decisions on. That's right, I'm resorting to "testing fan brand loyalty" because I literally can't think of any reason other than if you're a collector, that you'd want to commit to buying something blind. And I'm a collector of sorts, and I STILL want to see it before committing.

As an over-serious spelling and grammar nazi and pedantic geek who needs to get a life, I'd like to point out that I've been watching football since 1973, so your "epitomise the post-Sky generation" thing is significantly wide of the mark in this case.

God only knows, and don't get me started on why we have to wait until long after the season ends during our most successful season in years to find out in the first place !

Actually... "With ten games to go of the campaign, he admits that he'll need to be patient, but won't rule out a permanent switch to the south coast if all goes well. "I'd like to think so, but as far as I know it's just a loan at the moment, so hopefully I'll play games here and I can impress the gaffer. I'm delighted to be here, and I'll just take every game as it comes because it's a test for me, but a good opportunity too, so we'll see what comes of that." http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10280~2324020,00.html But you're right about him being "cover". Shrewd use of a loan, though we did still rely on Gobern at Brighton, who did well, to my surprise.

I think it was fairly obvious we weren't signing him when he, along with N'Guessan, were about the only fit first team squad members not playing at the All-Star game.

That's true, but it's been a few weeks since the ST prices were announced, and though some of us (inc me) have been counting the days until they or someone else stumps up for their ST, not everyone has it in the front of their minds, nor will they necessarily remember that within the fairly short renewal period. That does of course mean that the club would get more money for the same product having missed out on the renewal price, but call me a cynic...

I haven't changed my details for ages, and I didn't get one last year and did this. Maybe they used a different method of compiling the list.

People mentioned the lack of email reminders to buy Season Tickets last year as part of the Cortese Conspiracy to get people to buy on a match-by-match basis and pay Cortese Tax. This year, as a 2010/11 ST holder I got an email from Leila Habibi (as opposed to Southampton FC) with pretty much the most perfunctory "don't forget to renew" message possible. It was in no way any kind of sales job or marketing, but at least they actually sent one this year. Have any of the non-ST holders here on the database had an email enticing them into buying an ST yet ? Or is that something that looks like it can wait until the renewal period is up in a fortnight ? I'm not sure whether this is an improvement or just another sign that the communication from the club is as minimal as possible.

Is it the same argument as wanting ST payments to come out earlier ? I can see the value in having both sorted early in relation to the start of the season, but it's not actually affecting the season itself very much if we have to wait instead.

It'll be interesting to see what happens in the Chapel this season, as the club have positioned it as the Family Stand, but also made renewals cheaper there than anywhere else in the ground, including the Northam. So given the correlation between low incomes and lawlessness, there could be a few ex-Northamers who are strapped for cash, or who have got kids they can get in for free in the Chapel but would have to pay for in the Northam, who move to the Chapel and expect the same rules you can get away with in the Northam to apply there.

Thing is, the title of the thread is "we must spend now". We don't necessarily have to spend at all, depending on how the squad adapts (and wins over Ipswich and Blackpool and decent performances against Millwall, Skate Cheats FC, Leeds, Birmingham, Bolton and even Man U for a while in the past two seasons) have all indicated the squad are capable of playing successfully at a higher level. Also, even if we do spend with the intention to strengthen, we don't have to do it "now", because there are 5 weeks before the season starts and 4 months before the loan window does.

I find my enjoyment of this forum is greatly heightened by people whining about their posts being moved. HTH.