New Kit unveiled.

[Chipsticks]

The deal with Nike was good for publicity, and - to my untrained eye - raised the profile of the club. I'm sure Macron is less prestigious by comparison.

I never buy them, so am not personally bothered too much, but I'd say that if your kit supplier repeatedly supplies you with kit late, in the case of last year practically Christmas, thus making a big dent in your profitability, whilst pissing off all the fans who want to go on their summer trips to Faliraki in the new shirt but can't, then you are very right to start fishing around for someone who'll at least let you flog the stuff when you want to.

Also, weren't the kits from Nike invariably some shite doled out to a crap French club a year before or something? And weren't they also off piss poor quality? I looked at some in the club shop, and to me they looked unbelievably flimsy.

The Nike training great always looked very smart, but were the shirts all that?

If we're now operating in more austere times and have to live within our means, cash in the bank from the shirt supplier is worth a lot more to us than clueless far east television fans being able to walk straight past our kit to buy their new Man United clobber in Nike World Hong Kong, surely?

Agreed, if anything Macron will likely be efficient and spend a lot of time on the design and delivery with our kit, as I'd like to believe we're one of their biggest clients and they won't want to lose us.

If anyone's interested, here's a list of the teams sponsored by Macron:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macron_(sportswear)

[Percy McCarthy]

Maybe it's short for macaroni?

[eamonn]

We had that already but it bears repeating.

[Percy McCarthy]

Sorry didn't see it. Saw Macroni but I thought that was perhaps something significant I'd never heard of.

[Whiney MacWhineface]

_{mind you, it could have been the sight of myself, about 5 stone lighter and 20 years younger that was really getting to me}

Jeepers. Here's me fretting because I put a stone on! :-)

[Rudy Can't Fail]

_{mind you, it could have been the sight of myself, about 5 stone lighter and 20 years younger that was really getting to me}

Jeepers. Here's me fretting because I put a stone on! :-)

I always thought Paulie's friends called him Queenie (for obvious reasons) but in fact it's Quinnie.

[GordonCowansisthegreatest]

Maybe it's short for macaroni?

That's pasta joke now.

[TimTheVillain]

Looking forward to the new kit, I think they'll do a far far better job than swoosh.

A yellow and blue away kit please, wouldn't that be so retro.

[Leighton]

I definitely remember someone in Serie A wearing the same kit.

Think it was Parma.

[TimTheVillain]

I definitely remember someone in Serie A wearing the same kit.

Ham struggling to find this

Think it was Parma.

[The Man With A Stick]

Didn't Ipswich also have that kit design too...

And Sheff Utd, Chelsea away...

[FatSam]

Here are the Parma, Ipswich Town, Sheffiled United, and Chelsea shirts.

Only the Parma one is a direct copy of our shirt - its clear that Umbro designed the round band around the laced collar for us, directly influenced by our historic shirts, and this template was used later by Parma. There was obviously a small fashion for these retro laced collar shirts at the time, which can probably be traced back to Sparta Prague's adidas shirt of around '91, which got a lot of exposure in European games.

As for Macron. I like Napoli's more fitted European shirt, but their other ones look pretty shoddy to me, as do the Leeds and West Ham shirts. Their logo is pretty hideous for a brand that claims to evoke 'Italian style', and its the extensive use of it on the later shirts is the main problem. The Napoli European one looks like it has had a bit more attention to its styling, and hopefully this is what we can expect also.

I agree that we were messed around by Nike, and have done the right thing in looking elsewhere - for self-respect as much as anything else. I can't help thinking that one of the fundamental problems regardless of supplier will remain the fact that we release a new shirt every season. It means that a lot of people like me are unlikely to bother buying the shirt at all. I'd rather have an older shirt than try to be up-to-date, when I'll have so little opportunity to get any use out of it. After all, I'm only likely to wear it either to a game or when doing sport myself.

[villadelph]

It just hit me right now, but I think we are approaching this all wrong.

While I'm actually a bit excited to see what the tops look like after all of these decent mock-ups, what is the club shop going to be in for? I can't imagine Macron products are going to be flying off the shelves, much like Nike products do now. Nike is an easy name/brand to sell to the masses, Macron however is a whole other story. I wonder if astonvilladirect is predicting low sales for next campaign. The wide range and extensive variety of fashion that Nike provides is immense. Will Macron even have enough material to stock the shelves? I'm nervous this could hurt our financial situation even more, given that retail earnings and international brand recognition is worth tons of money in modern day football.

[Holtemeister]

If you want a new villa shirt you will buy one whether its Nike or Macron

Are you saying that people buy a shirt because its Nike ? You wouldnt buy a Bham City shirt just because they were supplied by Nike would you ?

Think theres been a bit of a hysterical and irrational reaction to this announcement, for petes sake the club hasnt even launched the shirt yet and people are getting them selves into a mindset that they will not like it whatever it looks like based on the manufacturers name. 

For goodness sake .... Get off the clubs back a little and give them chance.

[gervilla]

If you want a new villa shirt you will buy one whether its Nike or Macron

Are you saying that people buy a shirt because its Nike ? You wouldnt buy a Bham City shirt just because they were supplied by Nike would you ?

Think theres been a bit of a hysterical and irrational reaction to this announcement, for petes sake the club hasnt even launched the shirt yet and people are getting them selves into a mindset that they will not like it whatever it looks like based on the manufacturers name. 

For goodness sake .... Get off the clubs back a little and give them chance.

Exactly. It doesn't matter who makes it , as long as it looks decent.