Football Shirt Culture.com

Derry City's new away shirt was launched in Foyleside today with Sammy Morrow and Sean Hargan on hand to model the new strip. The shirt is available in the Candystripe Store, High Street in all sizes.

The shirt is a return to the classic Argentina shirt and the City will be hoping for a return to the glory days of 1988/89.

City will be returning to an "Argentina" style away shirt, which has featured as the club's away shirt several times since entering the League of Ireland.

1988-89, the year in which City completed the domestic treble the team sported a blue and white striped away shirt, and Stephen Kenny will be hoping that history repeats itself this time around.

This is the second time that O'Neills will have produced a blue and white away shirt for City, as they were also kit makers in 1997 when City wore a broad blue and white striped shirt.  

The 08/09 home kit was unveiled a while ago.

The current colours of the red and white striped jersey with black shorts are derived from an early connection with Sheffield United, who wear the identical pattern. Specifically, the colour-change should be attributed to Billy Gillespie. Gillespie, a native of nearby Donegal, played for Sheffield United over a twenty-year period from 1913 until 1932, and scored over 137 league and cup goals in 492 games for the South Yorkshire side, as well as captaining them to FA Cup success in 1925.

He was the club's most capped player with 25 for Ireland and had started out with Derry Celtic before embarking on a career across the Irish Sea. The man was held in such high regard in his home country that when he left United in 1932 to replace Joe McCleery as manager of Derry City, the club changed their strip to red and white stripes within two years of his arrival in reverence to him and his time at the Blades.

Derry have had their kits supplied by various manufacturers over the years, including Adidas, Avec, Erreà, Fila, Le Coq Sportif, Matchwinner, O'Neills, Spall and Umbro.

Commercial sponsorhip logos to appear on the front of shirt have included Northlands (a local alcohol and drugs treatment and awareness organisation), Warwick Wallpapers, Fruit of the Loom, Smithwick's, and AssetCo.

Other sponsorship logos to have appeared on the sleeve have included the Trinity Hotel, Tigi Bed Head and Tigi Catwalk. For the 2007 season, the logos of local media, Q102.9 and the Derry News, appear on the back of the shirt just below the neck, along with the logo of Meteor Electrical on the jersey's front.