underboyleheating

I have a yearbook in which our then manager Roger Hynd asked the fans to submit designs for our new kit (I’ll try and find it, but it may take sometime). I entered the competition representing our supporters bus, but sadly I didn’t win. Years on my unique 78-79 lightening bolt sash design was resurrected by Roma for their new away top, I’m claiming to be a design visionary. If you haven’t seen the new Roma sash shirt I suggest you take a look. It’s about as controversial as my 1978 effort. Anyway, Admiral duly went away and manufactured the new fan designed two vertical striped kit, although, there is still a mystery surrounding how it was selected. I’m currently doing some research into that and if I find the answer I will let you know. By January of 79 it became apparent that the new look wasn’t proving to be that popular and the club decided to revert back to the previous design, before switching to adidas in season 79-80. The adidas deal was arranged through a Scottish kit rep. I remember reading an interview with the guy a while back and he mentioned that he handled quite a few Scottish teams back in the day, including Motherwell. With regard to our ‘traditional’ claret hoop. It’s generally accepted when a side first establishes a signature look, (in our case, a full claret hoop) that particular design/colour will be forever linked to the club. It took us until 1928 to establish our own kit identity which remained unsullied until 1969. However, it’s up to the custodians of a club to protect that identity, but sadly the people in charge opted to neglect it. Most notably in the 1970s. Some clubs like Celtic (hoops) or Boca (bold hoop) Airdrie (Diamond) appear to be more protective of their kit identity and in my opinion this has to be applauded, especially, for home kits. Our penchant for white shorts are much easier to explain. For quite sometime shorts were only available in a few colours, mainly white or black! Motherwell usually opted for white or occasionally black as an away option. It wasn’t till much later that other colours became more readily available, however, Motherwell decided to stick with the white as it seemed to compliment our bright amber shirts. Of course new traditions will evolve as a club moves forward, however, it’s the first ones that usually become entrenched in a club’s identity.

From past experience, your cut will be 10% of nothing.

Hearts at Fir Park

Correct. We were sadly victims of a certain laziness within our club who failed to insist that our chosen kit manufacturers used our correct colour. Instead we appeared to just accept what we were given. Umbro were are hit or a miss and appeared to lose their way with our colour in the 70s, and Admiral only started to get it together with the short lived fan designed 1978-Jan 79 kit. Happily we now appear to have settled on what our official claret and amber colours should be and we should see a more consistent tone throughout our future kits. The next step is to reinstate the traditional full hoop which I view as just as important to our kit history as the shade of claret and amber.

Consistency is what separates the top strikers from the average ones. I think the Championship will be good for him as he will get regular games and hopefully it will sharpen him up. Consequently, more of the ‘sitters’ will end up in the back of the net.

I had just turned 16 and he was the main person who I went to the games with. He introduced me to Motherwell and the reason why I still support them to this day. I was in a daze for months/years after his death. Consequently, the whole 79/80 + 80/81 seasons were a bit of a blur for me. So perhaps my personal trauma had some impact on my opinion of that kit. Although, I do remember hearing some criticism of the colour among the purists in our supporters bus at the time who weren’t happy that our traditional amber was now yellow.

He should have had two apparently. I agree I think he will flourish in that league an I would expect him to reach double figures by the end of the season.

Danny Johnson opens the scoring for Dundee.

It was the worst time for me as my dad died suddenly in December 1979, and it left a huge void in my life. As well as being my dad he was my football buddy and it’s funny how day to day life intervenes when you least expect it. So that ‘yellow’ strip coincided with a bad time in my life.

True. But they would have looked better doing it when kitted out in our official colours.

Dam you Nottingham Forest for wearing yellow and dam you adidas for your lazy ways. What might have been...

And... Q: “Which part of the United Kingston are you from?” A: “Scotland.” Q: “Scotchland, is that near London?” A: “No, Scotland is a separate country within the United Kingdom” And so on and so on...

Both our kits this season have a front band only. Although, worth remembering that from 1928 to 1969 we always wore a proper unbroken hoop. A hoop is generally regarded as being more of an integral part of a shirt design (Boca Juniors, Stuttgart, Celtic all teams who usually insist on a proper full hoop no matter who manufactures the kit). On modern day kits a band is sometimes regarded as being nothing more than an advertising feature to frame the sponsors logo. Thankfully this season the band on our top is just a band and will not be used for any advertising.

Our original ‘Tailored by Umbro’ late 50s/early 60s ‘floodlight kit’ had the claret section on top of the amber, it also had hooped sleeves. Hooped sleeves are a feature that I would have liked to have seen added to the recently released shirt. In my opinion it would have made the shirt more unique to us and a proper homage to the legendary Ancell babes.

As a supporter of the new away top my one slight disappointment is that we didn’t take the opportunity to reinstate the full hoop that remained unbroken between 1928-1969. I’m hopeful that this once traditional feature will one day become the norm again.

Along with a few others I posted an image of that away kit on here last season. It’s a belter and takes me back to our 70s C&A Umbro sash away top. If we do choose to revive that classic at some point I suspect it will be a few years down the line as we currently have a white away top and we usually like to space them out.

League cup, could this be our year? We haven’t won it since the early 50s so it’s about time we sorted that.

Our new away top reminded me of the classic chest hooped Dumbarton tops.

It’s a tricky one, on the one hand I’m ecstatic that the shirts are sponsor free, however, on the flip side I’ve known people who’s lives have been badly affected by gambling. Personally I would ban betting advertising on shirts, although at the moment football is a wash with online betting sponsors to the extent that the majority of teams will have at least one betting logo on their shirt. Suicide prevention and gambling aren’t great bedfellows but in the current climate betting companies are the ones with the money and we are sadly in no position to refuse their investment.

Sampdoria style but green instead of blue.

A hard working pro who never reached the heights of his brother, however, having spoke to his one of his close relatives I know which one is favoured, and lets just say it’s not Chris.

I’ve heard the same alleged PP rumour, so expect some high jinks before the launch. A missed opportunity from Paddy Power..?

Footy.com have written a blog on the prolific rise in shirt gambling sponsorship...

It’s purely a Paddy Power publicity stunt for the kit launch. Although it does highlight how ridiculous sportswear sponsorship has become in 2019.

As a shirt purist this would be my preferred option, although, on the financial side the club would suffer.