SW11_Saint

I think the words "on course for" are key. Standard PR stuff to try to promote momentum.

I is needing a word wiv your English teacher...

With due respect FC I think the 'glass half full' argument is an over simplification. Of course things evolve and change, but you have to look at each change in turn and judge it on it's relative merits. Some changes are good - new ground, better pies. Some are less so - appointing inept managers (lord knows we've had a few of those!), changing your traditional home kit. Also of course whether things are deemed good or bad is entirely subjective (you applaud the kit change, I don't). Of course, the noise will die own on this. The season will start, we'll have other distractions (hopefully posiitive ones). The minority who like the kit will be happy regardless. The majority who don't will just suck it up and hope we change bak to something more in keeping with our history next season. Can't wait for the season to start, but must admit I feel odd watching us run out in the 'Liverpool kit'. I do hope you are right about the club following customer demands though. Less than 35% approval* is pretty appalling and if that is reflected in lower replica sales then that will dictate what happens next I suspect. [* from the poll above before anyone jumps down my throat - incidentally the most positive 'pro kit' figure I have seen]

Okay, no point me coming back tit-for-tat but I am still not sure you have really got the gist of what I was trying to say. That might be my fault, it might be yours, but no point dwelling on it. The mock hurt at my comments - fairly innocuous I thought - doesn't wash though, especially given your patronising posts to me, CBFry etc. (got to be able to take it was well as give it fella!). I think you just don't "get it" you think I talk "subjective waffle" and /or "outright bolox" - doubt we'll change each others minds, so we'll leave it there! I do want to clear up a couple of points though. My only criteria for a "good" kit is (a) good design and (b) something that speaks to our identity/tradition. That is why I liked the Rank Xerox kit -it is red, white and BLACK - the colour palette most closely associated with the club. I have no problem with straying from stripes now and then, though they are my strong preference, as long as there is some discernable link to our identity and use of those three colours. The new kit has neither good design nor any link to our identity in my view. And I don't have a "vehement dislike of the new setup" (it hints that I don't like the club management etc. -this might have been a typo on your part, or you may have misused the word setup, so not saying this was intentional). I just have a vehement dislike of the new home kit. I hope the next one is better too. They'd be hard pressed to come up with one worse! Over and out.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/jul/02/chelsea-offer-southampton-luke-shaw Will be very interesting to see who we react to these sort of bids now. Doesn't make real sense from any angle - he has a much better chance of first team football with us, and we're not so strapped for cash that we need to sell. Stick with the Saints kiddo.

That you think "The Lounge" is the benchmark for debating skill has just made my day...

Certainly, I would be delighted to. Unfortunately, your post again emphasise your lack of understanding in this area, so my efforts may be somewhat futile, and to be honest, there is no guarantee of me a good job of it either - football culture being somewhat indefinable (in the same way that 'culture' itself is) – it can mean different things to different people. Which brings me to my first point - you seem to be under the misapprehension that football culture is one tangible 'thing'; a set of rules or precedents to be followed ("What part of the football culture code does it contravene? Which version of the football culture are you subscribing to?"). It is actually the opposite of a set of rules - a free form, organic mix of thoughts, feelings, passions, trends, fashions, language, song, even art. Again, it's just "culture" and as difficult to pin down or define as you might expect. But in this context of course it is all related to one thing - football. Moreover, for each club it is about their football club - their team, their community, their fellow fans, their rivalries, their songs, their history, their colours, their badge, and yes, their kit.. All of this - this intra-club culture - gives a club its personality, its identity. And this identity is important. It's very important. And a clubs colours are massively important part of that identity. They let each ‘soccer tribe’ know who you are, and what you stand for. It gives cultural signals. As fans we “nail our colours to the mast”. We want our players to “play for the shirt”. Those rather clichéd statements means something in football culture. Celtic fans live and breathe the green and white, they are proud of their distinctive identity, proud of the hoops. Likewise Man Utd’s Red shirts, white shorts, black socks makes a statement – it instantly says “Man Utd” (even if they have nasty variations in the shirt like this season’s awful gingham print). Barcelona and Norwich are instantly identified by their livery. The shirt, the kit, tell people who you are. It is a symbol of your culture. You give the analogy of a child crying over their best/favourite toy not being the colour they like. Again you are illustrating that you don’t “get it”. You are mistaking Saints as something disposable, like a burger, a car or a toy. It isn’t. Well it isn’t for me. If you are a true fan – and I have no doubt that you are - then it is something more permanent in your life. And again, that identity, those colours – the red, white and black – mean something. Or they should do. I can accept pretty much any variation – the Rank Xerox kit is still one of my favourites. I loved the Sash kit and all it commemorated too. I can live without stripes for a season if I have to, but I do want to have a kit that suggests “Saints” to me. That reinforces that identity to the rest of the world. That represents that culture. Our culture. And I have to say in the last few years I think the club, and Nigel Adkins, have done a fantastic job in reinvigorating and enhancing that culture. All the “together as one” stuff. I love it. Which probably makes this move to the all red “Liverpool” kit all the more disappointing. It doesn’t crush our culture, of course not, it just diminishes it a little. And hopefully for just for a year, unless a more worrying longer-term ‘rebranding’ exercise is going on. As many have pointed out to me, I have lost this battle. Not that there ever was one - the Chinese sweatshop kids fingers had bled a long time before we got to see our “all red Premier League kit” (like we’ve never been there before!). You and other fans, although a minority, are happy about the move. I am not, and as a season ticket holder, and a fan of over 40 years, I do feel I have the right to state my vehement dislike of our move away from the red and white shirt and the black shorts. In my view it just move us away from our tradition, our culture. That’s it. COYS! PS I was amazed to see you actually live in Liverpool, a City steeped in football culture and tradition, given your seeming naivety in this area.

Oh I won't, and he doesn't. I just enjoy dissecting flawed argument and hysterical conspiracy theories (even if it is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel...).

5% unsupportive, rather than 50%. This is what I was saying yesterday. The club has missed a huge opportunity to get the vast majority of their customers onside, and boost kit sales, as we march back into the Premier League with our identity intact. Shame.

Again, clearly no understanding of football culture whatsoever. Poor you.

Exactly. It's a really embarrassing line of arguement, retro-fitted after this ill conceived kit came out. "Great, we are all red now, I've always wanted that - time to move forward, ditch the red/white/black and not have those terrible clashes with Sunderland, Stoke etc.". Just ridiculous.

I think NC has done a great job too. I think NA is a brilliant manager, I love him. I just think we have a sh1t kit this year that looks nothing like Saints. Stop trynig to make out anyone who doesn't like the kit is somehow "anti-Saints". It's childish and pathetic. PS personally I would prefer stripes in the Premier League. Can't quite understand why you think the two are mutually exclusive?

And me. Just give them this. It looks like Milan Mandaric anyway.

No, just Saints. All I am interested in. Have no desire to be rebranded a Liverpool mkII.

I think you'll find very few football fans like their club trying 'something new' in terms of changing the colour palette used. The extreme example is Cardiff. My point is that the club would have far fewer unhappy fans if they had based the new design on typical Saints colour combo's, rather than basing them on another club. 10% of fans not liking it makes much better economic sense than 50% not liking it!

Actually, I take that back - just seen the mock up with he black shorts. Just as hideous.

Pretending to be Liverpool doesn't feel 'special' to me. I'd rather just look and feel like Saints.

And what a shame that is. With a bit more thought and understanding of what most Saints fans want, the club/Umbro could have produced a kit that would have had 80-90% approval ratings. A massive missed opportunity to march back into he Premier League with our identity intact and our supporter based happy (not to mention the increased revenue from increased replica kit sales).

I think part of my hatred for red shorts is rooted in me going to buy the new Saints home kit in 76/77 (the candy striped one). It was from a sports shop in St. Mary's St - the church end of the street, can't remember the name (Duncan?). The dummy in the window had the kit on, but to my horror had red shorts, complete with the Admiral symbols down the sides. The guy in the shop told me that we were going to be playing in red shorts that season. I just couldn't believe it. It didn't look right. It didn't look like Saints. To my 12 year old credit - I was really desperate to be the first kid on the estate with that kit - I decided to wait. It just wasn't right. Of course later, on going to the Saints Shop I was relieved to find out that we were indeed playing in our traditional black shorts, and all was well in the world again. I never did return to that St. Mary's sports shop. Suspect I am not going to find out thre's been a mistake this time!

The fields of Netley Marsh...

Ward-Prowse looks like a fan that has won a competition to be on a poster, bless him.

To be honest black shorts would probably have placated a fair few. It's the all red / Liverpool thing that I think annoys most dissenters.

I think that's what the percentages are for. 34% like it, 66% don't or don't care.

What the ?!*# are YOU doing on a football site with so many terrible things happening in the world??

Oh dear, you're getting into very murky statistical waters here my friend... Based on the evidence we have (the poll above), I could very easily argue that, if you say the "3,000" that turned up (I believe he figure was more like 500, but anyway...) they represent those in the poll (statistically), thus 6,000+ fans DIDN'T turn up. Or we could do the no of people who turned up and bought kits as a % of the Saints supporting population of the city? Okay, being flippant, but you can't mix up your mathematical basis mate, you just can't... PS I have a few mates who, believe it or not, don't like the kit "but will probably buy it anyway", so even the supposition that those who buy he kit 'like' it is flawed. Strange world.