When I began writing this blog back in 2008 (has it really been five years? I really should be more productive) Reebok didn't really figure. They were losing kit contracts all over the place, mainly due to the adidas takeover, and barely appeared on my radar. At the time of publishing it seems the only even relatively famous club they supply is Bloemfontein Celtic.
If the end is nigh, or even overdue, then please don't think I'm suggesting they've had an inauspicious twenty year foray into football design. Let's also remember that they have supplied Ryan Giggs' boots for all of that time and even snared the Thierry Henry contract for a couple of years too. No, Reebok are no strangers to on-field success, as unlikely as it once may have seemed.
The first time a Reebok logo appeared on a football kit it was mounted onto the shirt of Bolton Wanderers. the club sharing a town with the company's factory, and was at that stage merely a sponsor. The Matchwinner kits provided an ample home for the branding for several years and until the point where Reebok thought they could give it a go themselves.
After the initial Bolton kits, with Reebok's relatively subdued efforts being in strong contrast to the trend for more daring approaches in the early 90s, the manufacturer managed to secure some higher profile clients. Olympique de Marseille and adidas parted ways when the side found itself in the French second tier and Reebok came to the rescue with an iconic design - similarly appearing on the newly incarnated Russia's tops - featuring an enlarged version of the logo across the chest. It would never be allowed today, but Reebok had finally embraced the trend for boldness.
And yet, as they replaced adidas again, this time for Liverpool, they demonstrated their propensity for the classy and elegant. Liverpool's 1997 and 1998 Away kit releases were things of true beauty, even if the team of the time was not. Better fortunes, however, were just around the corner.
It's such a pity that when success returned to Anfield, in the form of a minor treble in 2001, mediocrity began to set in with the kit supplier. The Home strip was passable but shades of blue suddenly became an unwelcome staple secondary colour on change strips and when it departed in 2002, the kits' designs were devoid of the measured style that had been present so recently. The Carlsberg sponsorship contract apparently now stipulated that the brewery's logo should be in green on light change strips, even with that colour barely featuring elsewhere, and this further spoilt the cluttered kits adorned with superfluous flashes.
Perversely, one of Liverpool's finest hours coincided with Reebok's first demonstration that they had lost the plot. In 2004-05 Liverpool were once again crowned Champions of Europe, and whilst the shirt they wore in the Champions League final was merely unremarkable, what they carried in their defeat of Bayer Leverkusen was horrid. A combination of messy, stain-looking patterns and angular constrasting structural panels - entirely unnecessary - all somehow still unpleasantly underwhelming rather than gaining true notoriety through genuine polarisation of opinion. Reebok, instead of building on previous triumphs - their bread and butter being the striking yet minimalist approach - ventured into the complex and extreme, apparently aiming for a Marmite-like response and instead receiving widespread disdain, and surely modest sales.
And so it continued. There was the occasional triumph - the 2005 Bolton kit featured one striped sleeve, which worked brilliantly in long-sleeved, with white shorts balancing the kit with a navy flash on the left leg - but even the manufacturing quality was now suffering, with sponsors and badges rendered with plastic heat transfers which peeled and creased after only a few washes. South American kits were slightly more successful but this may be thanks to the use of multiple sponsors forcing the manufacturer to keep the flourishes to an areal minimum.
The writing was on the wall in 2009 when Reebok released the new kit for their ongoing commercial partner, Bolton Wanderers. Literally - they held the naming rights for the stadium - but also figuratively, as it was a kit so bad it almost cost me a friendship. On a night out, meeting said friend's new partner for the first time, we discussed interests and I happened to mention I held a fondness for football design. It turned out that someone very close to her had recently left Reebok. The answer to the question, "Ha! She didn't design that horrendous new Bolton kit did she?" was as inevitable as it was mortifying.
And I was reminded of that particular monstrosity quite recently, when looking at the virtually confirmed Liverpool Third shirt. That particular style of concave pentagon, regardless of embellishments, is rarely seen on a football shirt. In fact, any bold design features lower down on the front of the shirt are rarely seen. Now that I think of it, the appalling new Liverpool Away also has a lot in common with the last two white Reebok LFC kits.
Could it be that, like a phoenix from the flames, Warrior's design department is at least partially driven by the talent (the inverted commas were typed, then deleted, then typed, then deleted) left over when Reebok no longer had a use for it? The consistent disregard of outside influences or trends would suggest so. Umbro, Nike, Puma and adidas have all, to varying extents, and probably in that order, recently embraced the "less is more" philosophy; Warrior, in last season's Liverpool Third, next season's Away and Third and in the clumsy defeat-from-the-jaws-of-victory Sevilla Home, have done their own thing, which so far seems horrifically misjudged.
Of course, like Reebok, Warrior have managed some triumphs too. Two successive seasons of "all right" Liverpool Home shirts is no mean feat, and last year's Away wasn't half bad either. Whatever set of circumstances gave us those kits, and Reebok's better offerings, needs bottling and then that bottle opening up, preferably well before Liverpool have to submit their 2013-14 playing wear details to the Premier League.
Follow Jay29ers on twitter
