2013/14 home kit revealed to mixed reaction
The club’s official site announced: “We are proud to reveal the new Leeds United Macron home kit that the team will be wearing for the 2013/14 campaign. The white shirt features retro vertical stripes in blue and yellow which adds a different dimension to the famous white shirt. The collar is ribbed in royal blue and the shirt has micro mesh side panels for better movement. The back neck also features an appliquéd Leeds United rose.
“The shirt is teamed with white shorts and socks which feature details taken from the retro stripe on the shirt. The bespoke kit has been designed by the club and Macron to create a kit unique to Leeds United integrating various different fabrics.
“As per the current season, the Home Shirt is available in a bodyfit style, as worn by Leeds United first team. The bodyfit shirt allows freedom of movement and the jersey weave incorporates elastane which guarantees regular compression and facilitates movements by adhering to the body.
“The shirt features the logos of Main Club Sponsor, Enterprise Insurance, and brand new Secondary Shirt Sponsor, Help Link UK.”
The new kit went on sale on Saturday 27 April at the Elland Road Superstore and online, with the team wearing it for the first time that day in the closing home game against Brighton and Hove Albion.
Adult shirts were priced at £43 for short sleeves and £46 for the long sleeved variety, with shorts costing £19 and socks £10.
The initial reaction from supporters was not overly positive, as the Spoughts website noted: “The shirt has received a very negative response from Leeds fans on twitter… goes against what fans have been demanding for months, which is a standard all-white kit. It can be said that it is very easy to design a good Leeds shirt, but also very easy to ruin one completely. In the future, it would be worth noting that little is needed in the way of incremental improvement.
Leeds fans will likely purchase an all-white shirt over and over, as long as it is nice. It feels ludicrous saying it, but even a return to the 2010/11 home kit would be a vast improvement.”
Under the headline, ‘Why today’s kit is such a disappointment’, another page on the site went even further.
“Leeds is a city with historic ties to the industry of tailoring, with the Montague Burton factory in Leeds considered a city unto itself during its peak of the 1930s. The city’s sizeable Jewish population also had a hand in the tailoring industry, with the industry essentially sustaining the community at certain junctures, with 63% of the male working members of the community employed as tailors in 1901. For a city with such a great past for quality clothing, one of the representatives of the city, Leeds United, should be enrobed in a glorious manner. What has been revealed today is anything but that.
“This coming season is the 54th anniversary of the first time we wore an all-white kit, the transition having been made at the hands of Don Revie. Since then, there’s been some spectacular interpretations of a kit and colour that should ooze class, the footballing equivalent of a classy white collared shirt.
“In the last few years Macron, an Italian sportswear manufacturer, have taken over the license for Leeds kits, and systematically ruined every design. 2010/11 is the only high point, where a team playing beautiful attacking football had a kit to match.
“Today’s announcement is an abomination to the notion of the all-white kit. It would be fine as an AC Milan away kit in 1995, because that’s what it looks like. This is not Leeds United at all. As I said before, it is incredibly easy to design a good Leeds kit – it has to be white, and wearable. It is similarly incredibly easy to ruin one with superfluous additions. It should be basic and simple, and that is always enough.
“Today’s kit is the equivalent of racing stripes on a white Mustang. It’s unnecessary, tacky and makes it look like crap. It also speaks for how out of touch whoever makes these decisions is at Leeds with the fanbase at large – how many people will have emailed repeatedly GFH Capital’s email address for suggestions about Leeds, and how massively must these have been ignored to get today’s result.“The response has been incredibly negative, and will likely lead to poorer sales than anticipated. With the club probably requiring funds for a promotion push, this is probably not the reception that was wanted. The sad thing is that clearly the fans could do a better job of telling Macron what is actually wanted than whoever selected this design at Elland Road – in 12 months, we’ll have to go again and hope they get it right next time.”
The WeAllLoveLeeds site commented succinctly, Aaaaaaarrrgghhhhhh!!, describing the kit as ‘tawdry’.
TheScratchingShed.com was a little more objective, saying:
“Another season, another Leeds United kit launch, another mixed reaction from fans.
“Following two days of Leeds United posting teaser shots to Twitter – none of which gave much away – today finally saw the new kit unveiled.
“An enormous blue and yellow racing stripe down the centre wouldn’t have been a design recommendation I’d have lobbied for, but for reasons I can’t explain, I actually quite like Macron’s latest effort.
“’Leeds United’s home kit should be entirely white’, argue many fans, and I do agree our best kits (like the ’72 Cup final shirt) have been entirely white. But if people want to make this a purist argument based on club colours and history, Leeds United’s home kit should really be blue and yellow, as per the city’s crest and the club badge. Don Revie introduced the white to copy Real Madrid in a move not dissimilar to the one Cardiff City’s owners pulled last season.
“We’re probably more associated with white than blue and yellow these days, but the trouble with an entirely white kit is there’s absolutely nothing you can do from a design perspective. The only thing that would ever change is the sponsors, no one is going to pay £43 to keep up with the new sponsors each season.
“And it’s not as if the entire fanbase despise the new kit. Seems to me that the latest kit is no different to the reception every kit gets – some like it, some don’t. I doubt there’s ever been a Leeds United kit which pleased everyone.
“If nothing else, the go-faster stripes should at least improve Michael Brown’s speed.”
By 27 April, the poll on the same site had received around 1500 responses, with 35% declaring they loved the new kit, 36% hating it and 29% undecided.