New away kit, template?

Sunderland Away Kit 11/12

Ireland Away Kit 11/12

Athletic Club Away Kit 11/12

I personally love the new away kit, I think it's the best since the turquoise Nike one from 2003. However people keep telling me it's just a generic top from a template that Umbro would only have to design once for a number of teams. This doesn't bother me really but it does make you think how little work goes into each kit for the amount of money fans spend on it each year. The top alone is around £40, the socks and shorts aren't cheap either so if you're getting the whole kaboodle then you're gonna have to shell out a lot of money. Anyway with people mentioning this template I decided to have a look about for other kits Umbro have designed for the upcoming season, I didn't have to look very far as I noticed the new Ireland away kit was practically identical to ours barring the colours and the collar, whilst watching the ROI v Scotland match. I also remembered seeing the new Athletic away kit a while back, and when I looked at it again realised that again this is very similar to ours, the collar is the same, the only difference is the red and white stripes as opposed to the one white stripe on ours, apart from the base colour that is. Remember when fans had a choice of which kit the lads would wear away from home? That was a much better idea, it will have taken longer for the kit designer, yes, but if the majority of fans have chosen it then they can't really complain about the design and as a result sales would probably be up.


As you can see from the three images below, Sunderland have always had a fancy for a light blue away kit. As well as these three from the 80s, we've also had the aforementioned Nike one in 2003/2004 and the Lonsdale kit we won the Championship in under Roy Keane in 2006/2007.

Sunderland Away Kit 81-83

Sunderland Away Kit 83-86

Sunderland Away Kit 86-88