The Kitbliss Podcast: Recent Episodes
Chris Oakley
Analysis, debate and discussion about football kit design. Presented by Chris Oakley. For more information, visit https://www.kitbliss.co.nz.
After four years and fifty episodes of different kinds, The Kitbliss Podcast has finally reached the end of the line. We've almost run out of words on the subject of football design, but we're taking this one last opportunity to give you the benefit of our wisdom. You lucky people...
It's the return of the classic line-up with Chris Oakley being joined by Jay (from DesignFootball.com), John Devlin and Rich Johnson for the first time in two years! Together, they look at some of the topics that continue to get everyone talking and generally getting under everyone's skin. Will there ever be an end to the tidal wave of retro shirt designs? Will we ever see the return of two-year kit cycles? Would baselayers have been quite as well known if it wasn't for Jay?
There's also time for one last (better) attempt at a football kit quiz, a tying-up of many outstanding subjects and a look at the best of the templates mentioned so far in the 100 Greatest Football Shirt Templates series. No end to the amount of content crammed in, and hopefully a fitting end to The Kitbliss Podcast itself.
It's often been noted on The Kitbliss Podcast that certain teams in England and Wales can't help but turn their backs on tradition. Take those clubs that usually wear striped home shirts. Why do some of them switch to a plain shirt every few years, or wear a diagonal sash or something completely different? In this episode, Rich Johnson joins Chris Oakley to look at those teams who can't resist an occasional change, looking at the best striped shirts and the most interesting 'break with tradition' shirts.
Download the Crib Sheet here.
In this, our third special episode that was originally recorded for Patreon followers only, Les Motherby is the guest to discuss his lifelong love of Hull City Football Club and their kit history.
There are few people who know as much as Les when it comes to Hull's kits, which means he's just the right person to ask about that tiger print shirt from 1993-94, as well as the lesser-discussed follow-up from 1994-95. Is the 'Worst Shirt Ever' brigade focusing on the wrong target for their ire? Les gives his views...
We also discuss Hull City Kits, the website Les has carefully and diligently put together over many years, and his exhibition of Hull shirts that formed part of the 2017 UK City of Culture celebrations. There's even time to put one vital matter to bed once and for all: Should Hull City wear striped shirts or plain shirts? Once again, Les tells it like it is...
If you enjoy listening to this interview with Les Motherby, you'll be interested to know that he's gone on to create a podcast of his own with Denis Hurley and Gav Hope called The Football Kit Podcast. It's well worth a listen for news and opinion on all that's happening in the world of football kit design.
If you're a regular visitor to the Kitbliss website, you'll know that a major new project has recently started that looks at the 100 Greatest Football Shirt Templates. Well we couldn't pass up an opportunity to talk in greater depth about that, so here's the first episode of many in which we check out the templates in positions 100 up to 96 in our countdown.
Once again, Jay from DesignFootball.com is the guest and joins Chris to provide a scatologically avine angle on great shirt designs, starting off with Tottenham's away shirt from the early 1990's. Along the way there's a chance to consider what sort of shorts Danny Dyer wears to the gym, which Mr Men character may have inspired a well known shirt template and conduct a psychological assessment on Jay to see if he can re-evaluate some of the football kits he saw as a child. We also ask the important question: When you think of a specific football shirt design, which football player springs immediately to mind?
To find out more about the 100 Greatest Football Shirt Templates project, get along to our website to explore the entries we've discussed so far, and as ever, please do get in touch with us to give us your feedback on our podcast or indeed the kits we've discussed within it.
(P.S. Excuse any roughness in the sound quality. The audio is provided courtesy of Zoom, and you can make of that what you will.)
In this, our second special episode that was originally recorded for Patreon followers only, Denis Hurley is the guest to discuss his lifelong love of football kit design, his kit illustrations and numerous website projects including Museum of Jerseys.
As many people will know by now, Denis is a prolific graphic artist, and one that has carved out a niche for himself by focusing on rare and overlooked kits from the past, as well as fantasy designs that are much admired online.
Our conversation covered these and other topics including rugby shirts, Gaelic games, mashup kits, as well as a look at how Denis got into football kit illustration around the time of the 1990 FIFA World Cup. So if you're a fan of Museum of Jerseys and want to know more about the man behind the project, have a listen to this podcast, after which you might want to listen in to The Football Kit Podcast, co-presented by Denis and Les Motherby.
It's the Kitbliss Christmas episode for 2021, and some of you have been kind enough to 'give' us football shirts as presents. How kind!
But as we all know, Christmas can be a perilous time when loved ones gift us an item of clothing which is, shall we say, 'unwanted.' The job for Chris and Jay on this episode is therefore to say thanks for the football shirts you've nominated in a delicate way that doesn't sound too disingenuous.
That said, not all the shirts were akin to the sort of garish jumpers your auntie knitted you for the festive season. Some of them were rather nice, and you can see what they all looked like by checking out our Kitbliss Crib Sheet here.
As well as our valiant attempts to sound grateful for your shirts, we've also got a review of the main kit news stories from recent weeks, plus memories of Robbie Fowler - The Overweight Years, discussions about UK retail uniforms and an appeal for someone to start up the first blog site all about shirts and socks. It's a 2-hour bumper episode, but what the heck - it is Christmas after all...
Can it really be 15 years ago since John Devlin's second book, True Colours 2, was released? For those of us that own a copy, time has certainly flown since we got our hands on another bumper batch of John's kit illustrations.
And what a great book it was. Featuring 19 teams - five of which were national teams for the first time - and well over 700 kit images, it more than provided the sort of knowledge craved for by football fans across the UK and beyond.
So what better than to catch up with John to find out what he thought about the book and how he went about researching so much wonderful content? Recorded via Zoom, we find out which team's chapter John particularly liked working on, which British club foolishly decided not to be a part of the project and what connects all of the photographs used throughout.
There's also ample opportunity to remind John of his cheeky comments about Coventry City's relegation woes, the kits we didn't realise we hadn't seen before and much, much more besides.
In this first special episode, originally recorded for Patreon followers only, Andy Rockall is the guest to discuss the finer points of Tottenham Hotspur's kit history.
As a contributor to the 2019 book release The Spurs Shirt, Andy knows more than most about the kits Tottenham have worn down the years, so who better to give us his views on the best and worst from the last half-century or so?
Among the many topics covered are Tottenham's crest, Spurs' ever-changing change kit colours and those classic long shorts worn during the 1991 FA Cup Final. Listen in to find out Andy's views on those and discover things you never knew you didn't know about the kit worn by the team from N17...
For further information, visit kitbliss.co.nz/podcast.html
How often have you ever thought a football shirt would be much better if one thing about it was different? Here on The Kitbliss Podcast, we're thinking that all the time (don't judge us). To see if our instincts are right, we decided to put our theory to the test...
We've taken some examples of great and not-so-great football shirt designs and tried to improve them by suggesting one simple change. It might sound easy, but it turns out some shirts are seemingly unimprovable - even those that are regularly voted among the worst ever made.
Did we succeed in proving our superiority to all those highly-paid shirt designers, or did we regret even thinking the whole idea up in the first place? Download Episode 34 (with special guest Rich Johnson) to find out...
Crib Sheet available here
The Kitbliss Podcast returns with a look at some of the most controversial football kit designs of the last few years. Are Puma marketing geniuses or incredibly bad at making football kits?
Crib Sheet available here
Chris talks to regular Kitbliss Podcast guest Jay about his introduction to football and kit design, his long-standing connection with Design Football, baselayers, French football and much, much more.
For this year's festive episode, the Kitbliss team are shying away from the frankly shambolic quiz format of previous years and instead embarking on an altogether more valid project. Yes, this year, we're trying to find out what is The Most Average Football Kit of 2020...
Crib Sheet available here
If there's one thing we've been meaning to do on The Kitbliss Podcast, it's focus on one kit manufacturer and assess their output throughout. Well, we've finally got round to doing just that as on this episode we look at the work of French sportswear supplier Le Coq Sportif.
Crib Sheet available here
Goalkeepers. They're a merry bunch of 'characters,' aren't they? Well you'd think so, judging by some of the brightly coloured kits they've worn down the years. But it wasn't always like that...
Crib sheet available here
In this episode of The Kitbliss Podcast we're going back 30 years to that exciting time when FIFA's 14th world football cavalcade was unfolding before our very eyes. It was an interesting tournament, not least because of the kits we were seeing on our TV screens...
Crib Sheet available here
As if we hadn't brought you enough kit news on the recent two-parter, he we are again with an extra side order of info about kit releases being launched for the new season in the Premier League and beyond.
Crib Sheet available here
The second and concluding part of the latest podcast in which you find us wading hip-deep through the latest new kit releases. We start off with League Two in England and Wales but we soon take in Scotland, continental Europe and even Latin America on our conversational travels.
Crib Sheet available here
The 'Part 1' bit of the title is important because our latest podcast was a mammoth recording of nearly four hours, so we decided to split this episode into two. And what caused us to talk for so long? Put simply, the welter of new kit releases for the 2020-21 season...
The longest ever episode of The Kitbliss Podcast to date finds Rich, Jay and Chris presenting a topical tribute to the 2019-20 Premier League champions, Liverpool FC - and specifically their best kits.
Crib Sheet available here
Logos. They're everywhere, aren't they? They're on buildings, cars, food packaging... why they're even on this website. Football shirts are no exception, of course, but that's because football kit manufacturers want you to buy lots of their lovely products. Yet would we still buy a great football shirt if it didn't have a logo on display?
Crib Sheet available here
In this episode we look at those kits worn by teams leading the old First Division or Premier League at Christmas, but didn't complete their title challenge successively. Would they have become latter-day classics if the teams in question had gone on to win the title?
As previewed in Kitbliss Podcast Extra 3, we turn our attention towards Rich Johnson's new book, The A-Z of Weird & Wonderful Football Shirts and discover what it takes to turn a shirt collection of 700 or more into 200 pages of superb content.
Books about football kit design are few and far between, and even when you find one the quality is somewhat variable. Thank heavens, then, for John Devlin - the sort of man you can rely on to deliver the goods whenever he chooses to publish a title on the subject.
Jay, John, Rich and Chris wonder just what it takes to make a football kit inspiring. Should it be traditional or modern? Should it look like the kit worn by Brazil or Argentina? And is it ever wise to change your team colours in a desperate attempt to change your luck?
Japan: Land of sushi, judo, origami and The Rising Sun. It's also where you'll find J-League football and all the amazingly varied kits within it. On episode 23 of The Kitbliss Podcast, our job is to highlight the best of those kits, and to ponder why so many Japanese team names have an Italian influence. Coincidence?
Crib Sheet available here
Our first podcast of 2020 sees us diving headlong back into the world of football kit design with a lengthy recap of all that's been going on kit-wise since late last year...
Crib Sheet available here
It's back, and it's just as dubious as ever... yes, it's the Kitbliss Christmas Kit Quiz! Once again, we bring you a podcast where you can test your football kit knowledge against the best brains Britain has to offer...
Rich Johnson is the special guest for a look back at the best of Argentina's kits from the last 50 years or so. If you've ever heard Rich talking about football in the past, you'll know that he's a big fan of the 1986 World Cup, but will Argentina's kits from that momentous tournament rank among his favourites?
We're long overdue a look at the Australian/Oceanic football scene, so here we belatedly review the kits of the new A-League season. Aside from picking our 1-2-3s, we also question the viability of Australian shirt sponsors (particularly those of a mental health / condom crossover), promote our Instagram accounts because we can, and remember the joy of martians that eat instant mashed potato.
Crib Sheet available here
Wikipedia tells us that 'Euro 2000 is often named by football writers as one of the greatest international tournaments ever' (citation needed), but did the kits match up to the action on the pitch? Join us as we pick our best and worst kits of the competition...
Crib Sheet available here
Many people believe that Barça shirts are iconic, but in this first part of a two-part episode we assess the last 60 years of blaugrana kits in an attempt to find the genuinely great designs. Were we right to dismiss the kits of Mont-Halt and Meyba during our 50 Greatest Football Shirts Ever series, and did Kappa go too far in taking things to the other extreme?
Many people believe that Barça shirts are iconic, but in this first part of a two-part episode we assess the last 60 years of blaugrana kits in an attempt to find the genuinely great designs. Were we right to dismiss the kits of Mont-Halt and Meyba during our 50 Greatest Football Shirts Ever series, and did Kappa go too far in taking things to the other extreme?
Yes, folks, it's the game that's sweeping the planet * and in this episode, we're playing it! The game in question is True Colours Baggsy and you're invited to play along at home, especially if you have a copy of John Devlin's acclaimed book, True Colours (volume 1). Joining Chris Oakley for this nostalgia-filled episode of fun and frivolity are Jay from DesignFootball.com and Rich Johnson. Together, they pick the kits they'd like to own from several randomly-chosen pages of John's book - and you're invited to do so too! (* Utterly unjustifiable statement)
If you're still unaware of the hoo-hah surrounding Huddersfield Town's new kit for the 2019-20 season, this episode of The Kitbliss Podcast will bring you fully up to speed.
For those that don't know, The Terriers hooked up with a major betting company recently and caused a storm with their controversial new kit launch, but having admitted it was a hoax, have they left themselves with egg on their face?
This episode sees us bringing you yet more news, views and opinions on the tidal wave of new kits coming out for the 2019-20 season. And BOY do we have opinions. We wag a critical finger at Dundee for their colourful shirt sponsor fail, snigger sarcastically at Greenock Morton's away kit (featuring skirt-shorts and integral groin bulge) and shake a fist at the veritable insult that is Newcastle United's home kit inspiration. All this, plus a lengthy discourse on the current trend for LGBT rainbow motifs and much more besides.
Crib Sheet available here
If it's May, it must be that time of year when lots of new football kits are being released for the football season to come. If the constant tidal wave of news and information is proving to be overwhelming, however, fear not - The Kitbliss Podcast is here to make sense of it as ever. Joining Chris to assess the latest batch of kit releases are Rich and John, all of whom seem to be rather underwhelmed by the new Manchester United home kit...
Among a welter of international football tournaments coming up this summer is the FIFA Women's World Cup 2019, so who better to run the rule over the best and worst kits than The Kitbliss Podcast? Many of the 24 competing teams have launched new strips and we've singled out our favourite three home editions, plus our favourite away kits, top ensembles and our least favourite kits too.
For this podcast we bring you an hour-and-a-half of discussion about football team badges, with particular focus on club teams in the UK. From the coat-of-arms badges worn by teams in the early 20th-century through to the modern logos we see today, we assess the development of that most kissable of team identities. In short, if you like laughing at photo-bombing owls, trees with nipples, references to CD-Rom encyclopedias and boiled sweets sold in Britain during the 1970's, you've very much come to the right place.
Imagine if you had to make the perfect football kit. What would it look like? Would the shirt have short sleeves or long? V-neckline or round-neck? What colours would the kit have? Which manufacturer would make it?
Answering these questions is more difficult than you think, as was proven when the Kitbliss Podcast team tried to make its own perfect kit (metaphorically at least).
Ever wondered what kits are being worn in some of Europe's top leagues? If so, we can help, for on this episode of The Kitbliss Podcast, we'll be assessing the kits of the 2018-19 Ligue 1 season.
Joining Chris Oakley to run the rule over what's on offer are Jay from DesignFootball.com and John Devlin from TrueColoursFootballKits.com. All three pick their best home and away kits, the team with the best ensemble, the best kit detail and the worst kit in Ligue 1 this season.
In this special Christmas episode, Chris Oakley gathers together his three regular guests, Jay, John and Rich, for a football kit quiz that proves to be as entertaining as it is educational (i.e. not very much in either case). Test your own knowledge against our triumvirate of kit magnificence with questions like 'What colour home shirts do Dynamo Kiev wear?' or 'What connects West Ham's 1985-87 and 2018-19 home shirts?' If you think you know the answers to those two, then this is the podcast for you...
Are template kits a sign that your favourite team can't afford a bespoke design, or do they ooze a degree of smart conformity? In this episode, Jay and John join Chris to establish the good and bad points about those football kit designs that crop up time and time again in different colour combinations. Are you happy to see your own team wearing a template design, or should there be a wider range of kits on show? Listen in and join the debate...
Continuing on from the previous episode, we turn our attention to the worst national team kits ever (according to the entire internet). Once again, we raid our collection of data taken from 70 different internet sources to establish which countries have worn the worst kits ever seen in an international football match. As well as that, we tell you which are the five worst goalkeeper kits ever and generally give up in trying to say something positive about this weird and eclectic selection of football kit designs.
Have you ever noticed how many people have written blog articles or published YouTube videos to showcase (in their view) the worst football kit designs ever? If you haven't, you're missing out on a world of lazy research, borrowed opinions and misguided content. The question remains, however, that if you compiled the selections from a huge sample of these blog articles and videos, which would ultimately be the worst kits ever? The answer can be found on this podcast in which we reveal the top 10 worst football kits and do our best to tell you why they're far from terrible in the first place. Will your favourite team be featured in our countdown? Tune in to find out...
Barely a week seems to go by without the launch of yet another weird and wacky kit design, usually belonging to a Spanish lower-league club hell bent on worldwide notoriety, and often featuring large depictions of vegetables, seafood or internal body parts. But is the trend for novelty kits damaging to the integrity of football, and are these kits just a natural progression of those eye-raising designs we saw back in the 1980's and 90's? Join us as we sort the tiger stripes from the tuxedos on this trip into novelty kit heaven.
With the arrival of a new domestic season, the Kitbliss 'gang of four' is on hand to pick out their favourite kits and single out those that could have been far, FAR better... From home kits to away kits, great kits and weird kits, you couldn't ask for a more comprehensive assessment of all that's on offer in the top two tiers of English football, but will our selections match up with yours? There's only one way to find out, so download and listen in to this free-for-all of kit-based conversation.
We all take shirt sponsorship for granted now, but is it essential to complete the optimum look of a modern football shirt or does it spoil the design aesthetic? In this episode we not only try to work out when a corporate logo crosses the line from being acceptable to downright disruptive, but also look back at the history of shirt sponsorship to see who started the trend and where things are headed in the future.
With most of the new kits released for the 2018 World Cup in Russia prior to recording, Chris, John, Jay and Rich pick their three best home kits for the benefit of anyone that will listen. Before all that there's an opportunity to wonder at the extraordinary popularity of the new Nigeria home shirt by Nike. Just what is it that caused so many people to queue up outside Nike's flagship London store? As ever, we try to provide you with all of the answers...
Chris is joined by Jay (DesignFootball.com) and John Devlin to talk about The Fabric of Football, a new series of events that it's hoped will give football fans a chance to enjoy the beauty of football kit design first-hand. After that, it's time to assess Luke Roper's chances of succeeding as the new kit designer for Aston Villa FC. Can an independent designer take on the big manufacturers with a fresh take on kit design, and what are the risks involved in producing kit for such an historic team?
Chris Oakley and Rich Johnson look ahead to the 2018 World Cup and assess whose kits will be best out of Adidas or Nike. Will the nostalgia-based designs of Adidas win the hearts and minds of football fans, or will Nike grab the headlines with kits as eye-catching as those they've made for Nigeria?