Aston Villa players complain Castore shirts negatively impact performance

[AV84]

My concern, is how does all this affect next year's 150th anniversary kit. If we do end the contract, how soon can we find another supplier, who can then design and produce a special kit in time for next season. Hopefully adidas/nike would jump at the chance to produce a 'special edition' hopefully based on the first villa shirt.( I'm a traditional claret body blue sleeves fan) but for one season let's go retro and a modern take on the first shirt and colours would be great.

My concern about an anniversary shirt is that it should be sponsorless. Especially if they want to go really retro with it and make it look like something from the 1800s.

This is from a few years ago but there's a selection of anniversary shirts from various clubs and manufacturers.

https://www.soccerbible.com/performance/football-apparel/2020/01/25-of-the-best-anniversary-kits-to-be-worn-on-pitch/

Two things stand out to me, 1)Puma do the nicest ones, in my opinion, and 2) most of them were only worn once and released in limited numbers.

Prepare to be angry then because there is no chance on earth that we will go sponsor free next season…maybe one game around the date is possible if both parties see a marketing opportunity out of it but unlikely.

We're not going to go sponserless all season, but if you see the  2nd point after the article, it seems far more likely that there'll just be a normal kit for the full season with a limited edition, only worn once, hopefully sponsorless, anniversary shirt released alongside the others.

[Smithy]

I would imagine any manufacturer would be DELIGHTED to provide a kit for a significant club anniversary.  As long as it's not an abomination, it's likely to be a best-seller.  I was waiting to see it, but I was planning it would be the first 'in season' shirt I've bought in about a decade - I'm sure I'm not alone in that.

[AV84]

I would imagine any manufacturer would be DELIGHTED to provide a kit for a significant club anniversary.  As long as it's not an abomination, it's likely to be a best-seller.  I was waiting to see it, but I was planning it would be the first 'in season' shirt I've bought in about a decade - I'm sure I'm not alone in that.

An awful lot of anniversary shirts only got limited releases, I'd guess at much higher prices. So we'd release 1,874, for example.
I guess it comes down to what's going to make them most money.

[eamonn]

I'm quite looking forward to seeing ailesha whatsherface  in a clingy wet shirt. 😜

#maaate

“it’s only banter” = “hiding in plain sight”

Filthmongers

Russell's been branded.

[The Man With A Stick]

I would imagine any manufacturer would be DELIGHTED to provide a kit for a significant club anniversary.  As long as it's not an abomination, it's likely to be a best-seller.  I was waiting to see it, but I was planning it would be the first 'in season' shirt I've bought in about a decade - I'm sure I'm not alone in that.

An awful lot of anniversary shirts only got limited releases, I'd guess at much higher prices. So we'd release 1,874, for example.
I guess it comes down to what's going to make them most money.

That would be a disaster as most of them would be on eBay within half an hour.

[Grande Pablo]

TNT script writers shoe-horned in 'the shirt mustn't wear so heavy now...' at least twice in post match.  Good for SJM to say it was still rubbish!

[Toronto Villa]

Did they change anything with the kits for today’s game? They didn’t look as drenched as they have all season.

[AV84]

Did they change anything with the kits for today’s game? They didn’t look as drenched as they have all season.

New sponsorship deal with Sure antiperspirant being announced any day now.

[Risso]

Grrrrrrr, would have been 12-0 in proper shirts!

[AV82EC]

Did they change anything with the kits for today’s game? They didn’t look as drenched as they have all season.

They were, the video of the players coming back down the tunnel after the game showed them in all their sweat drenched yukkiness.

[brontebilly]

TNT script writers shoe-horned in 'the shirt mustn't wear so heavy now...' at least twice in post match.  Good for SJM to say it was still rubbish!

McGinn is a funny f*cker. Another quip about when he saw the tactics pre game either we were going to win or lose 6-1.

[pablo_picasso]

Did they change anything with the kits for today’s game? They didn’t look as drenched as they have all season.

We just didn't have the need to break a sweat...

[AV84]

A guy with the Telegraph bought one of the player spec kits for £115 and wore it to the gym. Said 5 mins in he felt it clinging to him, and after 30 minutes there was an actual puddle on the floor around him. As he cleaned up his mess his teeth started to chatter, the air con hitting him like he'd just got out of the pool. Another day he wore it again so his boss could take pictures and did some shuttle runs in the local park. Same sweaty mess happened and he said it actually feels like you're carrying a couple of kilos extra on you.

He also said as he was opening it he couldn't notice much difference between the jersey material and the plastic bag it came in.

He and the gym attendant he was chatting with seemed to agree that the tennis gear they made with Andy Murray was really great quality. And the conclusion, which most people have come to, is that Castore went too big too soon, overreaching and outsourcing to places they can't quality control.

Edit - I'd still like to see someone do a comparison between a couple of the clubs with Castore.

[Drummond]

It's overpriced shit, that's what it is.

The timing couldn't be worse to leave the deal, with the anniversary next season, lead times etc. We'll have no kit ready for supporters to buy until November etc.

My gut feeling is that we will end up with adidas as our owner has a share, or Nike because of the Heck connection (Nike have NBA, NFL and MLB deals). Given our current trajectory, you'd think we're far more attractive a proposition than we were.

[paul_e]

A guy with the Telegraph bought one of the player spec kits for £115 and wore it to the gym. Said 5 mins in he felt it clinging to him, and after 30 minutes there was an actual puddle on the floor around him. As he cleaned up his mess his teeth started to chatter, the air con hitting him like he'd just got out of the pool. Another day he wore it again so his boss could take pictures and did some shuttle runs in the local park. Same sweaty mess happened and he said it actually feels like you're carrying a couple of kilos extra on you.

He also said as he was opening it he couldn't notice much difference between the jersey material and the plastic bag it came in.

He and the gym attendant he was chatting with seemed to agree that the tennis gear they made with Andy Murray was really great quality. And the conclusion, which most people have come to, is that Castore went too big too soon, overreaching and outsourcing to places they can't quality control.

Edit - I'd still like to see someone do a comparison between a couple of the clubs with Castore.

The bold bit is something I was talking about a few days ago. At this time of year the shirts are horrible sticky things that must be really uncomfortable and we can all see that but when we get into winter games on a cold evening with frost in the air playing in a shirt that is soaked through will go from being a bit uncomfortable to being borderline dangerous.

I've played rugby in some fucking awful conditions but by far the worst was a cup game at Belper in early December where it was raining at kick off but stopped and cleared up early in the game. By half time it was about -3 everyone on the pitch had blue lips and fingers and couldn't feel their feet, after about 30seconds chatting the ref decided to abandon the game because it just wasn't safe. I've jumped into a fjord in January and lived in Norway for 2 years and I've never been anything like as cold as I was during that game. If our shirts had been like this crap I can imagine things going a lot worse than they did.