Update : Leaked 12/2
The new England shirt is not due out until early next year but the promotional photo shoot took place last week whilst the England squad were together.
Nike, who bought Umbro for £285 million last year, will be hoping they can influence a better job for the release, which is ’scheduled’ for next Spring. Scheduled being the operative word, as Umbro made a complete hash of the last launch of an England shirt.
For the launch of the last England away shirt last February, Umbro set a date, sent the marketing material out, then delayed the launch, adding a ‘reveal’ date in between. Hardly what you would expect for the England national team.
Then JJB Sports, one of the major resellers of England shirts, announced that they would be reducing the size of their usual order, citing a poor design as the reason.
The badly handled campaign affected sales of what is the jewel in the crown of the Umbro brand.This summer, when sales are at a high, Umbro’s competency at managing shirt launches was brought further into question when Everton saw their club shirt launch delayed. Industry reports suggested the quality of manufacture was in question, whilst Umbro placed the blame with logistics.
So now Umbro has the American sports giant Nike behind them, perhaps England’s next launch in Spring ‘09 will prove to be a smoother process.
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Comments
There must be some pics knocking around, surely?
Umbro and their diamonds seem to be quiet prevelent at the moment they even did a wierd job on Khaegestan on Saturday.What is always noticable is that what Umbro do with England on spring kits gets done to everyone else the following season. West Ham away looking just a little like the England away kit and so on. So I do not think they will have the Lyon,Everton,Rangers type template that is current at the moment.
I agree I really dislike the navy underside panels, the red bits are okay but red numbers and a version of the cross to some degree or the other wouldn\'t go amiss. My fave England home kit was the England 3-5 kit and the 5-7 kit.
And finally they should dump this training kit every hour type routine they do at the moment. each time you see them they are all wearing different coloured training kits! Redcurrent? Why?
Always can count on a \"yoyo\" to state something as fact that is absurd.
Put down the Lager and look at American sports teams uniforms:
They are all different, and steeped in tradition.
American Sports Leagues use consolidated manufacturing contracts because it is economically beneficial to the league. Despite a single manufacturing contract, virtually every NFL franchise has their own design.
MLB uniforms are tradition oriented: belted pants, button shirts, scripted names - all characteristics eminating from the 1920\'s through the 1960\'s. The 1970\'s saw inovation in uniform design - crew neck shirts, Henley collars, Floppy collars - but the public didn\'t buy.
The NBA requires uniforms be constructed the same because the nature of the sport demands it - you don\'t play basketball in long sleeves and pants. The baggier the top and bottom, the greater the freedom - and the greater the urban sales.
By the by, every European basketball team looks just like the NBA, except for the sandwich board sponsors.
As for Umbro / Nike making England shirts...if Nike respects the Umbro brand and contract, but provides a more lucrative and attractive product, demanding Admiral would be like the whole nose - spite - face thing.
Hey England, but look on the bright side: if you switch to Nike now, you\'ll atleast have decent looking kits when you fail to qualify for a second consecutive major tournament.
The material is cheap & nasty, the designs are over-complicated and tacky and they are badly made. I expect the same from next year too.
I think Umbro in general are an awful chavvy brand. Do umbro have some sort of hold over the FA? I ask cos about 5-6 years ago the FA announced the contract would go out to tender - then they announced that Umbro had won it a couple of weeks later..... Bukta or Admiral would be good from a retro point of view!
Can we have an England kit competition like the Poland one?!
While the FA logo will keep the \'England\' above the crest, the England kit will go back to the original, with crest only. The player match-shirts will also have a match/opponent/date badge under the crest like they used to do in the 1950s. It looks as well that the shirt will have a collar too.
More info and the idea behind the kit is available on the Umbro site by it\'s head designer. We\'ll have to wait though till 28 March unfortunately for the debut.
For a start the shirt in the picture above includes the current FA crest where the new shirt will have a newly designed \'old school\' crest taken from the orginal 1953 crest
Very plain and basic but classic!