Popping up on the internet from time to time recently amid the constant Portsmouth takeover speculation, has been the issue of the club's new kit for next season.
Of course, the all blue home kit, created to commemorate our '110th anniversary' (!), can't be worn next season as we will need another to mark our 111th anniversary. This does mean, though, that it looks likely we will be reverting to red, white, and blue. Hooray! Whether the design lasts more than one season remains to be seen. The picture doing the rounds for most of the last few weeks has been a rather amateurish looking photoshop showing white trim with a new sponsor, Intercontinental Hotels. However, the quality of the image left many suspecting tomfoolery.
There is now a new version appearing. It is shown on TrueBlueArmy.com. To see the home kit, click here; for the away, here. Rumour has it the third kit remains black, with a horizontal blue stripe. The source for these latest pictures is Canterbury in Australia, but whether the images are right or wrong, the kit must surely be in production by now. The issue of the sponsor appears unclear, with none shown. It seems the club may be cutting it fine if the takeover needs to be complete before a shirt sponsor is confirmed. The designs themselves look fine to me. The inportant thing is that we return to white shorts and red socks. This has got me thinking about other kits we have had, good and bad, but bear in mind my experience dates back only 25 years. It may be true, however, that we have seen more variations in this time than in the previous years put together!
1983-85 - a classic looking plain royal blue with slightly darker tramlines by Le Coq Sportif. Wouldn't mind one of these as a classic shirt!
1985-87 - not the home shirt, which was fine, but not as nice as the previous version my opinion. The manufacturer had changed to Umbro, but I'm talking about the white away kit, with the two diagonal blue shoulder stripes on the shirt. Although I'm sure this was the kit in which we were embarrased on national TV in an FA Cup tie against Wimbledon when, straight from the kick off after going behind, Noel Blake mamaged to slot the ball past Alan Knight for an own goal and 2-0, as Knight was doing up his laces!
1987-89 - again, not the home shirt with the red and white pin stripes, which even then I thought was tacky! Admiral, the new manufacturer, didn't cover themselves in glory there. But I loved the retro salmon pink away kit! I had one (with shorts and socks, of course as I was eleven at the time). I think we should reintroduce a version of that now!
1991-92 - this was truly horrendous! However, I still have it as a treasured possession due to its association with our FA Cup run that season (I also still have the blue shorts with the little FA Cup on the side). Made by Influence, it had their trademark zig zag, same-colour pattern all over it. I seem to remember Cambridge United having the same design on theirs. The only worse one I can think of was the Arsenal away kit which had the same pattern in yellow and black! That (and the cup run of course) is the only thing that made me feel better about this kit.
1992-95 - Asics were making quite a splash at this time and they gave us a decent home shirt, much better quality than the previous one. Something strange had happened with the badge, and even with the design on the shirt itself, which at a distance looked plain blue, but was a bit 'swirly' up close. Where they really came into their own was with the away kit, which was in black and red halves. I had both the shirts but the black and red one was much my favourite. I had great memories of it at a late season 2-0 midweek away win at Tranmere (Whittingham,2), but not so great ones after losing 1-0 to Leicester at the City Ground in the first leg of the play offs.
1997-99 - my memory is slightly hazy around this time as to exactly when we changed our kits. I think we used the Asics one for three seasons before they changed the design. The second Asics kit wasn't so good, with a huge white band around the collar. But the stand out horrible kit from this period was the Admiral kit which (I think) we used from '97 to '99. I still have it, if only to prove to anyone that asks (never gonna happen) how bad it was. It was poor quality with a HUGE badge in the middle of the chest, and 'Pompey' written in tacky yellow italics on the bottom of the back (?????). Still, we wore it at Bradford City in 1998 to avoid relegation.
2000-01 - after a one season flirtation with an own brand kit that wasn't up to scratch, the club unveiled an improved version in 2000. The quality was no doubt an improvement, but the shirt was uninspiring. Still, this is the one that Robert Prosinecki graced and the orange away version was at least distinctive.
This marked the start of the one-season kit era, with only one kit since the introduction of a new kit in 2000 surviving beyond a single campaign. The biggest howler in that time has been the 2005-06 kit by Jako with a yellow stripe running the length of the shirt. The season was as bad as the kit, and the icing on the cake was the embarrasing red and beige away effort. UGHH!
To the present day, and Canterbury make stylish kits. The 2007-08 Cup-winning year kit has been by far the best recently, with only the Le Coq shirt from the early 80s to rival it in my opinion. Some have complained about the gold flashing, but I don't mind that combined with traditional colours. Last season's colour scheme was paricularly uninspiring. Let's hope this new kit returns to tradition and lasts for more than one year!
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