The geniuses at Nike have done it again. If you are not aware, they were responsible for the recent debacle of releasing a pair of trainers for St Patrick's Day, which were described in the clumsiest of Guinness-referencing adjectives, and named, I kid you not, after the moniker given to the horrendously vicious British paramilitary unit which tortured and murdered Irish people in the early 1920s, the Black and Tans.

The only explanation for this PR disaster must be that a little word association popped into the mind of a marketeer and a quick Google of "Ireland black tans" gave enough - unchecked - results to apparently vindicate the now full-steam-ahead development of this project. Despite the obvious offence caused, the notion of this campaign being discussed in passing at an office water cooler in Portland, Oregon, leading any employee with a modicum of knowledge of Irish history to feel the blood drain from their face, offers a comical subtext to the farce.

And, as I say, they've done it again. This time the consequences are far less offensive and far less perversely misguided but they do again concern a lax grasp of details relating to history, in this case that of Liverpool Football Club.

LeBron James, the American basketball player, has had a pair of signature shoes made in his honour and these are decorated with graphics relating to Liverpool's history - via Nike's peculiar twisting of the facts.

I like Mr James. It's fun to see his enthusiasm for his business concern in the North West of England - he is a partner of Liverpool's owners Fenway Sports Group - and his carrying of non-adidas-branded club shop tat that would otherwise go unsold but for his contractual eschewing of Nike's rivals. The smile is wiped from our faces, however, when we see Nike produce trainers in his name, in a questionable colourway, which carry depictions of 18 Premier League trophies - denoting the club's English league titles, all won before the inception of the Premier League - and a heel detail "inspired by" the Liver Bird but looking more like a griffin defecating.

Despite the Liver Bird not being trademarked it would obviously be beyond audacious - and bound to provoke legal action nonetheless - if Nike had used an intrinsic part of the Liverpool crest on a pair of shoes which references the club, but for me this is easily resolved. Just don't make the trainers. And had Nike run the designs past fans of the club then they would never have been put into development.

Nike have had a welcome impact on football design and are now, with a little help from their subsidiary Umbro, receiving regular plaudits for their drawing board approach and for their ethics. In fairness, the indiscretions outlined - and the latter is not the first involving LeBron James - are unrelated to the Nike Football section of the company, which has again boosted its own reputation with its Euro 2012 releases and the new Celtic kit, but a brand is a brand and when you begin to risk the sales of Ireland shirts (Umbro) and, for similar reasons, the aforementioned Celtic shirts, not to mention your entire sportswear range in Ireland and in the sportswear-loving East End of Glasgow and Merseyside, it may be time to put a little more R into your R&D.
 

As I have mentioned before, somewhat unconvincingly, the "football" in "football design" doesn't have to refer to association football.  There are several other codes which fall under that umbrella term.

I've already covered rugby and there is of course plenty to write about in Australian Rules football and American Football, but this time I'll focus on the Gaelic Athletic Association's version of the sport and its virtually synonymous primary kit manufacturer, O'Neills.

O'Neills Sportswear was established in 1918 and has produced playing wear for Ireland's top teams - whatever the pursuit - ever since.  In addition, O'Neills has been the supplier of choice for much of the world's Gaelic sport teams - and there are plenty - and currently even provides FC United of Manchester with their strip.

In fact, O'Neills has hit the kit design headlines recently due to a shirt made for a Gaelic football (and hurling) club based in London - St Mary's University College.  It's a beautiful piece of work, and destined to become a cult classic due to being sponsored by Buckfast - a tonic wine particularly beloved by the Scots and Irish, but it does have two flaws.

The first issue I take with the shirt is a general concern regarding the sleeves.  O'Neill's has constantly been the subject of rumour surrounding its use of the three stripes on its items, but these - or certainly two of the three - are missing from the St Mary's shirt.  Aesthetically it matters little - it arguably would be an unnecessary addition, but it is an omission brought by limitation rather than choice.

The fantastic GAA kit blog Pride In The Jersey by Denis Hurley puts this far better than I ever could, but the omission is as a result of court proceedings whereby the German sportswear giant adidas attempted to block O'Neills from using the three stripes.  The Irish company prevailed in their own land, meaning anything designed to be worn and sold on the island of Ireland could carry the distinctive markings, but for everything sent overseas at least one stripe should be removed - even to the extent of O'Neills producing foreign versions of their domestic range, which inevitably leads to many people ordering the original version and having it delivered to an Irish address and then asking a kind soul to foward it on.

In this world of common markets, intercontinental trade and the internet, it seems staggering that adidas do not go further and try to get a European decision to overrule the Irish courts, especially with O'Neills apparently being particularly brazen in some of their adidas-lite designs over the years.

The truth may be more complicated.  adidas has a significant history in Ireland - not least through the A-list designs it bestowed upon Cork City via the nearby factory (available for your perusal thanks to, again, Denis Hurley) and it wouldn't surprise me if there was regular liaison between adidas and O'Neills' marketing and design teams and perhaps even licensing of outdated templates with slight variations.

Where the similarity ends, certainly in recent years, also provides the second problem I have with the St Mary's shirt.  Sublimation is a cheap printing technique now generally only used - in anything other than watermarks or patterns - by downmarket teamwear brands.  Unfortunately, and despite a range including some glorously embroidered crests, sublimation is the most common approach in most of O'Neills kits, for badges and sponsors.  This is a real pity as so many details would look far superior if even heat transfers were applied rather than one piece of material containing all the features of the shirt.

But on the whole this is a minor gripe.  The shirt has a cult standing to compare with many from the association football world and the conundrum of O'Neills/adidas continues to entertain me far more than it should.  The only thing left is to decide who in Ireland I can get to send me O'Neills' version of the 1993-95 Liverpool home socks.

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Something I touched on recently in The Second Best Titled Blog Article Ever™ (I'm, naturally, also responsible for the best) that deserves expanding on is the yin to the rise of the baselayer's glorious yang - the demise of long-sleeved football shirts.

As wrapped up as I've been in celebrating the - as yet not entirely tapped - possibilities of undergarments, I've perhaps negected to pay true tribute to the mainstay of football through the ages, which is now seriously under threat.

The long-sleeved shirt was, in what we'll call 'my day', the standard form of football shirt in every level below professional.  Coupled with a size label with at least one X, it meant cuffs to grip onto on a wet Sunday morning and, due to its roomy shielding of puny forearms, one less complex to deal with on the pitch.  As well as the only option in early nineties l'Olympique de Marseille shirts, it also provided the most sought after replica for Liverpool and Celtic - a thirst that was rarely quenched.

Things have changed.  Continental (please forgive the retro phraseology) long-sleeved shirts are as tricky to locate as their UK cousins and teamwear is now regularly available and acquired in short-sleeved variations.  In the Premier League, where once players would be the envy of the fan by having options when it came to sleeve length, it now appears that less is more (it's what one does with it that counts) and relative dinosaurs such as the finally declining David Beckham represent the luddites wearing their hearts below the elbow.

This seems more calculated than simple organic progress.  I asserted that fans do wear baselayers but perhaps I'm playing directly into the hands of the club(shop)s and manufacturers by feeling this way.  If the club-specific baselayers being alluded to by Everton and Hull City are the way forward then the sums are quite simple; if a short-sleeved shirt retails at £50 and a baselayer at £25 then this combined purchase - markup allowing - trumps a long-sleeved shirt's potential £60 - especially if the club shop consistently 'runs out' of the last item.

But what cannot be replaced is the satisfying - often, literally, seamless - continuity of a full length sleeve.  Which may be why that appears to be consigned to the dustbin of history.  adidas stripes have long been broken on the sleeve (elaborating on the reasons for that decision may be an article for the future) and this season's Manchester City away shirt, in long-sleeved form, is little more than the short-sleeved version with black extensions tacked on beneath the hem.  Yes, the upper part actually flaps over the lower section.  Remind anyone of anything?

The new France away kit was unveiled almost inferring a necessity for it to be worn with a baselayer, despite the exaggerated cuffs which once signaled the break between fabric and skin.  Its Gaultier-inspired predecessor was so seldom obtainable in long-sleeved that it provided a cruel false dawn for Gallic onion, baguette and bicycle sellers heralding a seemingly inevitable boost in revenue; perhaps its use of hoops sitting uneasily with a plain undershirt signed its death warrant.  Equally it seems improbable that the next Arsenal shirt, if leaked images are to be believed, will relocate its substantial cuffs between the versions.  The future seems to be a world of long-sleeved shirts, should they survive, being almost indistinguishable from a short-sleeve/baselayer combination.

I'm still to be challenged on the theory that Manchester United do not have long-sleeved Home and Away shirts this season - certainly in player issue form - and what the big boys do the rest generally follow.  I have no problem with myths about long-sleeved shirts keeping us warm being exploded and the cliché of scoffing at a footballer combining gloves with short sleeves is ignorant in the extreme, but, as much as I love the baselayer and relish its future, the long-sleeved football shirt and the timeless design it encompasses will undoubtedly be missed, should it indeed prove to be doomed.

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At last, Team GB has its kit for the 2012 Olympic Games.  And, sure enough, it's controversial.

To many the launch of the football kit - which I'll focus on for the sake of brevity - comes as a surprise.  Not to me, not to Football Shirt Culture regulars and I'd guess not to many of the modest number that read this blog, but plenty assumed that the kit released last year, when the storm over the other 'Home' nations reluctance to release players for the tournament was at its peak, was the playing wear for the Games.  It was, in fact, absolutely shameless opportunism from various marketing entities - particularly demonstrated by the prococative use of Welshman Gareth Bale in publicity shots - but sadly plenty fell for it and didn't realise that its labelling of "Supporters Kit" meant that it would never feature on the pitch.  Part of me died inside every time I overheard someone in the street exclaim something along the lines of "I'm gonna get that Team GB kit!  It's well nice!"

It wasn't the Team GB kit, and it wasn't well nice.

It was cheap, tacky and dated.  Three things that could never be levelled at Stella McCartney's wonderful creation for adidas.  I speak as someone who has designed a relatively well-received Team GB shirt which featured on the talkSPORT website, but I bow down to Ms McCartney's disregard of templates, conformity and any clamour for a more literal representation of the Union Jack.

Because, as you may have heard, despite the main graphic on the shirt being a stylised version of the British flag, there is a lot of blue - various shades - and not as much red.  This means the crosses of St George and St Patrick are portrayed using alternate sections of the spectrum or, for some, entirely misrepresented.

And it works.  It works brilliantly and the elephant in the room is that the Union Jack - or Union Flag, to give it its proper name - could never have been used in its traditional form.  This is the first Olympics for decades that will feature a British football team and replica football shirt sales - for every nation - will dwarf anything that has gone before.  To join the dots for you, the right-wing morons that abandoned their devotion to England shirts when Umbro released the Hoxton-friendly "pink crosses" design after the South African World Cup fiasco have been after something to fill the void ever since.  They may not have plumped for a TECHFIT PowerWEB version but a Climacool red white and blue Great Britain shirt would have been just the ticket for an English Defence League march.

The Union Jack is crude.  Whatever debates people have over imperialist pasts the fact remains that in 2012 the Union Jack evokes images of the worst examples of nationalism veering into racism.  We may not have the public opinion to remove it as the national flag - certainly not when so many continue to bellow an equally offensive anthem - but in the hands of the fashion world's glitterati it was never going to be anything other than toned down, especially once McCartney's mind was made up that the angular structure would be the focal point of the shirt.  Therein lies the secret to its success.  Even if anyone still needs to satisfy their ereuthophilia, and can't wait for the likely all-red away kit, then combining the shirt with a Tyrone Gaagle baselayer from GAA specialists O'Neills would work a treat.  That'll stick it to 'em.

The alternative approach would have been to follow Umbro's lead in using the colour scheme but not the geometry, as featured in the quite open nod to the ikurrin displayed on everyone's latest favourite shirt, the Athletic Bilbao away.  Schitzophrenic Umbro are somewhat more coy about admitting any similarities between the Rangers away shirt and the Union Jack, which is surprising after they seemingly had no issue with putting their double diamond on an orange Linfield shirt,  

For me, McCartney rightly ignored the Umbro twist and instead used the tradition of the flag in such a brilliantly measured way - taking the right risks - that the shirt will be lauded in due course.  If the Daily Mail has a problem with it, compounded with its issues concerning naturalised and dual-nationality athletes taking prominent positions for Britain at the Games, then it merely acts as an endorsement of the delight which has met the launch.

Apologies to anyone who is offended by my timekeeping.  The navy England away shirt has been out for nearly a year and only now am I going to review it.  I do have excuses but they're wafer-thin so I'll get on with the business in hand.

As late as it is, it may actually be an ideal time to read about the pros and cons of the current England away shirt.  There's a tournament coming - generally the point at which there is a spike in shirt sales - and England, despite my claims that they would wear Nike and/or a red away at Euro 2012, will be packing this model for their journey to Eastern Europe.  So as I have a review example, probably the last one I'll receive, let's make the most of it.

First a little background.  The shirt was launched by way of British boxer David Haye carrying it on his back prior to being completely outclassed by Wladimir Klitschko in his world title unification bout.  Not an auspicious start from the marketing perspective and it got worse still when Haye blamed his defeat on a broken toe.  After the lauded Tom Meighan-assisted unveiling of the previous away shirt there was method in the madness, but it backfired spectacularly.

The Kasabian stunt was also more accurately reprised with the assistance of dance music act Chase & Status (me neither) but the damage was done.  The England shirt would have to do its talking on the pitch.

The tragedy is it needn't have been this way.  The latest concoction from the Tailored By conveyor belt actually had a back story, and probably the best yet.  Instead of relying on erring boxers and disc spinning hat wearers (is there no end to C&S's talents?), Umbro could possibly have made more of the fact that the colour scheme which, as would pass, so many baulked at, had origins in the traditional appearance cap given to every player turning out for the national side.  When I was later educated with this further information, David Haye and the apparent musical geniuses disappeared in a puff of smoke, to be replaced with comforting nostalgia.

And if we view the shirt from this perspective it fares well.  It's not red, but red has been done to death and, whilst I maintain that the brand new goalkeeper shirt may well have originally been designed as an away - and I'm not ruling out it being promoted to that (Chase-less) status by way of public opinion and Derren Brown-esque mind control from Umbro - it's actually a relief to not have to compare an England change shirt to one worn 46 years ago.  This shirt is unashamedly navy and it should be commended for its arrogance.

It's also unspectacular.  Like the first Tailored By home shirt in '09, it's simple and for all the history and fanfare surrounding its release the most positive attribute is its understatedness.  As a design piece it is measured and restrained.

From a tailoring perspective it may be the best yet.  The shape and cut stick to the principles of the '09 home but now the chest/shoulder stitching details are more flattering and pronounced.  As Umbro are always very keen to emphasise, this isn't a skin-tight shirt but more than ever before, sorry Kitbag, it is a shirt that must be tried on.  Get it in the right size and it will flatter most of us, get it in the wrong size and it will be unforgiving or, if worn oversized, will defeat the purpose and descend into pointless polo shirtery.

That last comparison is, like its 2009-2010 home equivalent, the shirt's biggest failing.  As a replica shirt it's not quite enough.  Wayne Rooney looks fantastic kicking opponents in it because he accessorises with UEFA patches, his number on his chest and match-specific scroll below the crest.  For the average fan these details will be missing and, even allowing for the now noticeably high profile Umbro logo, it needs something a little extra. Three years ago I suggested a pink t-shirt under the home shirt, now my fondness is with baselayers and I urge the sartorially discerning to use one in the collar's paler blue as a complement.  It wouldn't be allowed on the pitch but, for once, the fan has an advantage over the player.

So nice cut, nice collar - though why it has no top button in this age of Micky Flanagan's w*nker/a*sehole is beyond me - and it is the last, to date, England shirt with what we will call a proper crest.

Yes, another advantage of reviewing the away shirt so late on is that I can compare it to the more recent release(s).  For me it is an absolute tragedy that Umbro have elected to eschew the greatest thing that their Tailored By range brought to the table, an England crest perfectly coloured and embroidered in all its three-lioned and crown and 'England' legend-less glory.

As a quick contrast, the England away shirt is based on a bastion of tradition and features the definitive crest, whilst the new England home kit is white with three-tone red details, save for the crest which is in just the one shade, and a collar that pops to reveal more three-tone red details.  The new home kit also features white shorts and, due to its simplified crest, the shirt cannot even be paired with the enduring navy change away shorts, which may have been a popular concession to the wallet and history.  Instead we look forward to a change pair in red #3.  Oh joy.

All in all the England away shirt is a masterpiece for the inventive.  You may have to work to see it in its full glory but as a creation it avoids being run through by the double-edged sword of design for design's sake.

Being all things to all men is a tricky balancing act for Umbro - a recent request for ideas on the direction of future shirts on a popular kit design forum was met with comment #1 "...stop making the shirts too simple." swiftly followed by comment #2 "A simple plain white shirt." - but taking pride in inspiring the quite brilliant new Nike ranges such as the risky France designs is not adequate if your own latest offering implies your most pressing current concern is determining which episode of Nathan Barley you inhabit.

Congratulations, Umbro.  The Tailored By range has been a wonderful breath of fresh air which has revolutionised kit design and, although it doesn't shout it from the rooftops, the current away/third-shirt-in-waiting is one of its finest purveyors.  Let's just hope time doesn't reveal it to be the zenith before the shark was jumped.