Motherwell 2021-22 Home and Away

[underboyleheating 1,445]

We were spoiled this season with two belters. The only thing missing was a proper claret hoop that could in theory been resolved due to our usual inability to reach the group stages of European competition. The need for a clear shirt back is not required in the qualifying rounds, this is to aid clubs with any extra costs involved. As we have known for some time that Europe is out of reach next season, and barring a Scottish Cup miracle I hope we use this opportunity to reinstate the full hoop.

Already the clues(?) are out there as to what we could expect. And if the club shop twitter banner is anything to go by I can visualise a sublimated deconstructed badge pattern on the cloth (see attached image). Football kits are designed well in advance so they will currently be nearing the completion stage.

Any thoughts on the type or design we will/should go for? I recent years we’ve gone down the retro inspired look and adopted a classier ‘Roma style’. This has been received well with not only the fans, but throughout the wider shirt collecting community. I’m a member of a few shirt groups and a good number of collectors have purchased our recent shirts for their collection. This is an added bonus for a club like ourselves as the collectors market is huge the world over. Get the design right and you will shift far more shirts to non Motherwell fans. More shirt sales, means more money for the club. 

 

[weeyin 3,686]

Adidas retro along these lines would be nice.

 

 

 

[SteelmaninOZ 98]

3 minutes ago, weeyin said:

Adidas retro along these lines would be nice.

 

 

 

This is one of my favourites the West Germany home top from the 1974 World Cup

[Happy Dosser 181]

Since the chances of our reaching the later stages of  either European competition are virtually nil, there is no real excuse for not playing in a proper hoop. I seem to remember that UEFA rules on contrast were cited by Alan Burroughs as the reason for not doing so but this is simpy not the case for the early stages of these competitions.

But I'm a reasonable man and even a hoop one season in two would  keep me happy, since I know a lot of younger fans don't have the attachment to it old fogies like wot I am do.

As for the change, our classic floodlight design is basically sound, although I would like a Sampdoria sandwich-style band/hoop occasionally.

Don't call me old-fashioned, call me Stalin .

[underboyleheating 1,445]

52 minutes ago, weeyin said:

Adidas retro along these lines would be nice.

 

 

 

Sadly our kit is currently manufactured by Macron and template is reserved for Adidas teams only. I mocked one up a wile back, I’ll need to see if I can find it. 

[underboyleheating 1,445]

2 minutes ago, Happy Dosser said:

Since the chances of our reaching the later stages of  either European competition are virtually nil, there is no real excuse for not playing in a proper hoop. I seem to remember that UEFA rules on contrast were cited by Alan Burroughs as the reason for not doing so

As for the change, our classic floodlight design is basically sound, although I would like a Sampdoria sandwich-style band/hoop occasionally

The contrast rules are there, however, they don’t effect qualifying rounds. Even the mighty Glasgow Celtic don’t order bespoke shirts until the group stage is guaranteed. 

I suspect we might opt for a mainly claret away next season as we’ve recently had a floodlight shirt (2019-20). The last claret shirt was the year before that (2018-19).

[steelman1991 213]

1 hour ago, SteelmaninOZ said:

This is one of my favourites the West Germany home top from the 1974 World Cup

I'm sure that strip was from a much later tournament than 1974. 1974 was white with black trim and black shorts and white socks.

[StirlingDosser 30]

As I say every year whatever the design it should have the proper club crest and NOT the retro MFC lettering. Might be historic for the club - but it is retro for a reason. Looks amateur and hideous.  

This season's shirt has been the best home kit I can remember. Everything about it has full marks from me, the collar, the design and the material. I get why we make a new one every season for revenue purposes but if we can broadly replicate this season's I'd buy it again. 

As for a new away, I'd like to see an all claret shirt with maybe a white and claret diagonal band, with white shorts. Don't generally buy the away top but open to being persuaded!

We have had a few horror kits in recent times - pretty much every shirt which had cash convertors on it (that alone would put you off, but hey it was a good sponsorship deal I'm led to believe), along with some of the hideous collars that Macron are capable of producing! For anyone interested this is a good record of our kits over the years: https://www.oldfootballshirts.com/en/teams/m/motherwell/old-motherwell-football-shirts-t171.html

 

 

[grizzlyg 451]

2 hours ago, SteelmaninOZ said:

This is one of my favourites the West Germany home top from the 1974 World Cup

Sure that was the 1990 world cup one

[MJC_mkII 14]

Agree about the badge instead of the MFC lettering, that just looks cheap.

The other thing that I think is a must for a Motherwell FC home kit is claret shorts. I cannot stand when we (regularly) opt for white shorts. That is the only downside to this seasons otherwise fantastic effort.

[weeyin 3,686]

2 hours ago, grizzlyg said:

Sure that was the 1990 world cup one

Aye, it's the one they wore from 1988 - 1991, including that world cup.

[Yabba's Turd 656]

The club crest has only existed since the 80s. I remember 81-82 season our badge was a shield of half fir trees and something else for a TV logo, pretty sure the badge first appeared on the Patrick strip.

[Pettywulliegrew-2 178]

Never been a big fan of the fan designed crest from 1982......prefer the script and old badges.......and white shorts 

[underboyleheating 1,445]

4 hours ago, StirlingDosser said:

As I say every year whatever the design it should have the proper club crest and NOT the retro MFC lettering. Might be historic for the club - but it is retro for a reason. Looks amateur and hideous.  

As for a new away, I'd like to see an all claret shirt with maybe a white and claret diagonal band, with white shorts.

As the artist responsible for restoring, and redrawing the MFC script I will need to agree to disagree on your critical appraisal of the design that first appeared on our 1969-70 Umbro shirt. However, it’s probably more well known as the monogram that featured on our classic 70s sash shirts that I loved as a boy. I suspect it’s here to stay, as it now features in the revamped tunnel area of Fir Park. There was certainly nothing amateur about my approach to redrawing the monogram. As someone who has been involved in professional graphic design and typography for 40 years I can assure you that retro doesn’t always equate to something being amateurish or hideous.  
 

A claret away shirt with a white and claret stripe wouldn’t really work, unless the claret sash was much darker than the claret base. 

[weeyin 3,686]

6 hours ago, underboyleheating said:

Sadly our kit is currently manufactured by Macron and template is reserved for Adidas teams only. I mocked one up a wile back, I’ll need to see if I can find it. 

I certainly have no complaints with Macron who have done some really nice kits for us. I live in hope, however, of seeing another Adidas one some day.

They have made some iconic designs like that German shirt and another favourite of mine - the Stefan Edberg shirt from the 80s.

I had the blue version

Although it might be a case of "you had to be there"

 

 

[underboyleheating 1,445]

13 minutes ago, weeyin said:

I live in hope, however, of seeing another Adidas one some day.

They have made some iconic designs like that German shirt and another favourite of mine - the Stefan Edberg shirt from the 80s.

 

Sadly we are way down Adidas’s list of teams they would consider working with on a bespoke level. The best we could hope for would be an off the shelf templated design similar to Hamilton or Aberdeen. The hoop/band would probably be gone, unless they release a suitable template. 
 

The Edberg shirt is a classic, however, sponsorship would ruin such a design. 

[weeyin 3,686]

I live in hope that as printing technology advances, which it's currently doing in leaps and bounds, that bespoke level designs might eventually become more realistic for small scale production runs.

[Kmcalpin 1,055]

I'm naive in such matters as kit production, but whats to stop us from approaching a British clothing manufacturer with our own design and asking them to produce it? Is there sponsorship involved? 

[weeyin 3,686]

10 minutes ago, Kmcalpin said:

I'm naive in such matters as kit production, but whats to stop us from approaching a British clothing manufacturer with our own design and asking them to produce it? Is there sponsorship involved? 

I'm no expert on the specifics of clothing manufacture, but I have been involved with other products' manufacture and the challenge there is that there is a large up-front cost for design and tooling that needs to be clawed back.

Once a production line is set up, the cost for each item made is (comparatively) minimal. If you are making 100,000 shirts you can divide that up-front investment 100,000 times and the economics are good. If you only shift 10,000 then splitting that cost results in much higher prices.

And then there's the problem of switching the production line between variants. Every minute your production line is down costs you money. If you can run a product for a month with no changes, then that is much more profitable. If you are doing small runs and have to keep taking things offline to change the patterns and materials every few days, that is more downtime where you're not making any money.

There will be other factors too, such as companies not wanting to tie up their best designers for low volume products, but I'd imagine the up-front sunk costs is the biggest barrier. I'm sure companies are less interested clubs our size too as they gain much less exposure to advertise their products.

[Happy Dosser 181]

Shoulda been Burrows not Burroughs in my previous comment.  I was thinking of William B., a very naughty man.

Have thrashed myself with birch twigs.

 

[brainier 46]

Nice to have insight into the production processes. Just makes me wonder how Loch Ness FC manage to get such distinctive kits (new Euro Finals 21 out soon) with such a small fanbase. Produced by ZN sports their current home top had to have several re-ordering runs due to it's popularity. 

[StirlingDosser 30]

8 hours ago, underboyleheating said:

As the artist responsible for restoring, and redrawing the MFC script I will need to agree to disagree on your critical appraisal of the design that first appeared on our 1969-70 Umbro shirt. However, it’s probably more well known as the monogram that featured on our classic 70s sash shirts that I loved as a boy. I suspect it’s here to stay, as it now features in the revamped tunnel area of Fir Park. There was certainly nothing amateur about my approach to redrawing the monogram. As someone who has been involved in professional graphic design and typography for 40 years I can assure you that retro doesn’t always equate to something being amateurish or hideous.  
 

A claret away shirt with a white and claret stripe wouldn’t really work, unless the claret sash was much darker than the claret base. 

I didn't mean any offence, I don't doubt the work that went into it but I stand by my opinion, the club crest is more professional looking for a top-flight football club and should be used on our playing kits. In fact, I think it should be league rules that the club crest is on the kit. I'm not saying don't have this kind of stuff on show at all, a retro range permanently on sale might go down well, just not on our playing kits. 

Also I made a typo re the claret sash, a white/amber sash on a claret shirt is what I meant. That would look good, and something I don't think we have seen before. 

[Pettywulliegrew-2 178]

1 hour ago, brainier said:

Nice to have insight into the production processes. Just makes me wonder how Loch Ness FC manage to get such distinctive kits (new Euro Finals 21 out soon) with such a small fanbase. Produced by ZN sports their current home top had to have several re-ordering runs due to it's popularity. 

[SteelmaninOZ 98]

17 hours ago, StirlingDosser said:

As I say every year whatever the design it should have the proper club crest and NOT the retro MFC lettering. Might be historic for the club - but it is retro for a reason. Looks amateur and hideous.  

This season's shirt has been the best home kit I can remember. Everything about it has full marks from me, the collar, the design and the material. I get why we make a new one every season for revenue purposes but if we can broadly replicate this season's I'd buy it again. 

As for a new away, I'd like to see an all claret shirt with maybe a white and claret diagonal band, with white shorts. Don't generally buy the away top but open to being persuaded!

We have had a few horror kits in recent times - pretty much every shirt which had cash convertors on it (that alone would put you off, but hey it was a good sponsorship deal I'm led to believe), along with some of the hideous collars that Macron are capable of producing! For anyone interested this is a good record of our kits over the years: https://www.oldfootballshirts.com/en/teams/m/motherwell/old-motherwell-football-shirts-t171.html

 

 

Good info on our home and away kits.

Some are what were they thinking type designs however they were some great kits.

[SteelmaninOZ 98]

16 hours ago, grizzlyg said:

Sure that was the 1990 world cup one

Aye ma bad early dementia