Brum combine a slight delusions of grandeur Ajax homage with a message suitable for a season in the second flight ;

Nah, it's just the increasing globalisation of footballer expressions and haircuts.

The Sevilla guy is Josep Luis Marti (now on loan at Real Sociedad). The Dortmund player on their right (viewer's left) is Sebastian Kehl (the other guy with the centre parting is Diego Klimowicz). I'm not sure who the Athletic Bilbao guys are (it might be Ustaritz and Llorente; in any case they both look as if they very much hope no one ever sees the photo).

the cookie-cutter similarity of their national team shirts (especially the African ones) mandating use of the qualifier

Cameroon's strips being the qualifier within your qualifier, of course.

Sleeveless:




And the legendary one-piece:




I've always wondered why they did that (apart from the massive publicity engendered, of course). It's not like the average fat fan is going to be seen wandering about in one, so replica kit sales would be very low.

The salmon pink kit I mentioned in the starting post was a Liverpool away kit. I remember a daft friend of mine buying one and being forced to bully him mercilessly. I have looked around the net for it, and the closest I seem to be able to find was the away kit from 97. They gave the colour a really strange name that noone (especially from Liverpool) had ever heard of. It looked like pale salmon pink up close. Maybe my friend's mum had washed it with his red Liverpool socks which made it look worse.

Liverpool's change kit in 96/97 was "ecru" and in 97/98 it was yellow.

I can't find "salmon pink" in this pretty exhaustive collection

I think your friend's mum has a lot of explaining to do.

Thank you for putting the "ecru" in quotation marks, Harry.

Bafflin, I was referring to Puma's more recent approach to African national team kits. They've been able to parlay their success with Cameroon (they actually did sell quite a few of the sleeveless ones and got LOTS of publicity for the "unitard") into contracts with a majority of the teams that played in the most recent ANC (the fact that Hayatou, the long-time president of the CAF, is from Cameroon hasn't hurt either).

Unfortunately, they made all the teams look very much alike (especially those that play in white).

Portsmouth's new away shirt;




OUCH! That is a really poor kit, let's just hope they aren't allowed to sully Britain's good name by wearing it in the UEFA Cup next season.

It looks like a one day cricket shirt.

And if your home kit is blue (and you play in a league with several teams that play in white), why would you have an white away kit with blue sleeves? Canterbury must really want to push the black "third".

It actually looks like a bowling shirt. Now, I like bowling shirts but football kits should not be mistaken for them. I like both current main Canterbury kits but this is wrong.

Portsmouth have been market leaders in switching to change kits superfluously as well, witness the game at Boro at the weekend and their mutiple crime of switching when playing an opponent in claret & (sky) blue.

I really like the Dortmund combo, especially the pin stripes on the socks. Much better than recent efforts

Didn't some club recently wear pink for one game for breast cancer awareness?

I don't know if Pompey take full credit for kit changing against Manchester City right now.

The deal was meant to be we get cheaper shirts. We do, but an awful lot more of them. I think we ran through at least two away shirts this season, maybe even three.

It was Everton, not Liverpool, who experimented with the salmon pink away kit in the mid 90s.

I thought it looked quite good, as it happens. I look good in pink, a bit like a Sicilian cyclist.

Everton had the pink kit for breast cancer last season, but I think it was a limited edition one, not actually worn in any match.



Coventry had an Ajax style away shirt about 4 years ago. It was nowhere as good looking as the new Birmingham version.

No, Everton definitely had a salmon pink away kit one season. Apparently it was their original colours, or something, it was in their centenary season.