I'm going to start this article by immediately contradicting myself. I write this just as the new shirts have been released. By Nike. And I actually like it! I’m using the singular pronoun, “it” because I only like the home shirt. The away shirt can go straight to the neon vibrance of Las Vegas rather than my house (although I’ll probably end up buying it anyway).
Back to the home shirt, I think that it’s definitely something to shout about! I’ve always admired Sunderland kits of old as they seem tailor-made. Consider the 1984/85 Cowie’s shirt which stunned with the simplicity of the white sleeves kept in shape by the pinstriped red and white trims. And the shirt obviously adorned, to the shock of everyone, Red and White Stripes. I can hardly contain myself.
And it is that sense of retro nostalgia that the club and Nike have chosen to create with the 23/24 season shirt. And that’s probably one of the few things that the Oregon outlet has done that has pleased me in recent years.
It’s fair to say that since the club took on the brand’s services at the beginning of the 20/21 season, the kits have been below par.
Everyone ridiculed Adidas’s seemingly lazy attempts to produce shirts. I know you can’t do much with red and white stripes, but replicating a deckchair on Roker beach was pretty laughable. Maybe they foresaw the season ahead?
Everyone thought that Nike would be a breath of fresh air. Not really. Their kits haven’t been as garish as Adidas’s designs were; but they seem to forget that we are competing in the Championship and instead, think that we are competing in the Commonplace Cup.
Or, actually, maybe we are. If your team is, let’s say, “not very successful,” at this moment in time, the likelihood is that that you will be served up a template shirt with a side order of colour. And that will be the same for every, “average” club. Our away shirts have now pretty much been identical for 3 years in a row. Same template, but with different colours. That isn’t where the similarities end, either. Last season’s away shirt was the same as Pompey’s and Preston North End’s …. a complete lack of creativity and individuality from Nike.
There may be an underlying reason for this, though. Nike, as we know, is one of the biggest sport suppliers in the world. It provides shirts for an abundance of national teams, and many clubs from around the world. And that’s just those for football. Maybe the fact that it supplies large numbers of clubs explains why there are similarities?
Having said that, I don’t think what Nike produces for English football teams is all that bad to look at. Certainly, its designs aren’t as ghastly as shirts we have had previously but there seems to be a sincere lack of creativity with them. With no disrespect to Carlisle United, Umbro has worked a wondrous time warp with their eighties inspired creation, and Carlisle are not as big as Sunderland in any dimension. Surely the size of the club can at least be reflected in the look of the shirt?
This viewpoint may be seen as being a bit critical - what your shirt looks like shouldn’t in any way impact on the way things form on the pitch. But it is these little things that look so obvious in a club that is being run mostly well (barring Steve Davison of course ).
Ah yes. Steve Davison. That’s brought my mind to the commercial side of football. I’m not going to chunner on about digital card this and why don’t you open the club store before Father’s Day that; but an aspect of this does link in with Nike. And it isn’t actually Steve’s fault. Wow. That sentence is rare. Nike’s branch of sportwear in Spennymoor, “Just Sport,” where the club gets the clothing from, was assigned the simple task of setting up an independent website for SAFC with the intention of making the commercial side of things slightly easier. What has it done? Nowt. So we had to do things ourselves. Some may put the blame on Davison’s shoulders; some may say that he should have been more conscientious with his actions. But I personally think most of it lands with Nike. Dear me.
In my opinion, it would be nice for the club to opt for someone like Umbro or Hummel, who seem to be making some top-quality products these days - and could maybe even manage to run a website!
Having said this, I have no doubt the shirts will sell in great numbers, and will, like every other year, be a commercial success.
If the website doesn’t crash again…
