The Expert on the Premiership has just departed for his pre-season soccer coaching, filled to the brim with all the latest news on the weekend's matches - Who scored and how, the table placings, the yellow cards and the strip.
The strip. What a magic marker on the state of British style. It is easy to see how the present pit has been jumped into. The descent began in everyday wear with the shift from working clothes like jeans into formless coverings which do nothing but hide nakedness. The dreaded shell suits had arrived. Presumably to make them easy to find in the dark in your neighbour's bedroom, they are made in many colours. In mitigation the classic shell suits that grace millions of flabby overfed slobs are at least pastel in hue tending to be light blue and green with occasional splashes of harder colour.
The away strip of the British association football league teams is several steps nearer the madhouse. Apparently designed by some crazed colour blind camouflager, the aim seems to be to make the garments as hideous as possible. Driven by the lure of Danegelt, club management changes the strip at least once a season so every supporter is forced to buy both home and away strip to keep up with their heroes. This provides massive revenue for the clubs, win lose or draw.
The frequency of change has exhausted the designers. Driven further and further down a darkening road they design clothing that is even unsuitable for emptying garbage.
They seem to start with a motif, say the club badge and motto, add the sponsors logo, then stir in a weird combination of colour, pattern and texture that bring to mind the infamous technicolour yawns of Bazza MacKenzie. Perhaps that's the point; many a fan will puke over their away strip so give them a blending background in advance.
But it's not just the colour of the stuff it's the shape. Professional athletes, even those who seem to spend more time drinking lager and going forty five minutes each way with a bird (without a band at half time) than playing football, are entitled to play in kit that is designed to enable them to play the game as well as possible.
These shirts and shorts are made as fashion items. Do we need to return to the days of Dixie Dean and the leaden leather football, heading the lacing of which marked a man for life? Why the voluminous shorts and the twee neck laces reminiscent of William Tell? These guys need to be sharp shooters, but there ain't any apples.
It seems a great pity that the style that works best was last worn in the UK by the World Cup winning team of 1966. The simple crew necked shirt and relatively short shorts gave the players room to move without carrying three spinnakers and a hodfull of bricks. The mighty Linford and his fellows are into the figure hugging one piece. I can't see him breaking wind let alone 10 seconds in knee length wide angle shorts.
Unsurprisingly the right kit is presently worn by the Brazilians, in their own elegant colours of course. Leeds United used to play, in the glory days of Billy Bremner and Alan Clark, in plain white strip of similar style. It was the time when 'all white' meant a superb football team not the catch phrase of a talented but sexually disturbed entertainer.
Now Leeds have returned to the strip of yesteryear. And where are they in the Premiership? At the top.
What's it all made of then? Such is the power of the anti ironing lobby that the plastic garment is king. When the Expert first donned his Spurs away strip a rash like rampant taramasalata rose upon his skin. And he was only sitting down. The stuff doesn't breathe. How can the manufacturers of this kit get the stars to play in it? And it is not just the footballers. Look how many sweat sodden shirts Boris Becker heaved into the pre-pubescent screamers at Wimbledon this year. The first tennis star who tells his clothing contractor that cotton is king will win everything. And that goes for golfers too. Who can forget Sandy Lyle's sweat stained armpits as he raised his arms aloft to salute his Masters win? More memorable than the seven iron from the bunker on the 72nd hole I'd say.
It is time for the poor underpaid sports star to say BOO to the Golden Goose and demand the kit from their sponsors that they can wear with comfort and then be made for the punters. Why be hostage to the Hotpoint and the non iron shirt? In every other walk of life the purity of cotton, linen and silk are making an affordable comeback.
Let's lead from the back. We will only buy our heroes' cast offs if they are made in natural fibres not plastic and in plain colours like granny used to wear not looking like frenetic drug crazed Northern Lights.
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