Black And White All Over

Black And White All Over

Rejoice Geordies worldwide, for your beloved team have once again attained the promised land of the Premiership.

Now the fun begins.

I don't mean the beginning of another financial catastrophe, or even the inevitable 0-1 loss at home to Blackpool on a wet Monday night in November.

No, for your average Mag, the real problem is what to wear.

Last year's striped-banana faux pas is today's paint-rag. Fashion-conscious north-easterners have quickly consigned that one to the (literal) dustbin of history. It's been bad enough having to go to Plymouth or Scunthorpe without having to run the gauntlet of mock-gay wolfwhistling at the merest sight of the sickmaking yellow away shirt yanked over your giant gut. Only a South American with long hair who pulls a Spiderman mask out of his jockstrap when he scores could find it attractive.

And he rarely scores.

But how precisely do you redesign what is, has and will always have to be black and white stripes to make them any more interesting or fashionable than last year's black and white stripes? It's the conundrum exercising every Geordie mind.

So I decided to do some research into the sartorial history of the shirt which has graced the backs of Milburn, Keegan and Supermac. Is there/could there be a correlation between the fashion status of the garment and the relative fortunes of the team that wore it - and could the present team learn from this relationship?

This one is from 1927-28. League position: winners. A fetching little corset-style collar and stripes the same width. A good start to my research.

It was an era and a style revisited in the Shearer/Asprilla/Ginola era - perhaps the club's most-revered recent period in 2003 - in which they ascended to the heights of 3rd in the Premier League. Of course they messed up royally and should have won it, but we'll not go there.

This one's the classic shirt of the 1968 Fairs Cup (children look it up) winning side. The side of Pop Robson and Bobby Moncur. The side that Geordies of my age remember as I do my beloved Manchester City of Bell, Lee and Summerbee.

However, as with City, the team underachieved, only finishing 10th in the same season. So, the little circles on the collar and socks only correspond with inconsistency.

Here's the 1976 shirt, with the famous 'winged' collar, modeled by the spud-like Terry Hibbert. Fortunately City were able to hammer these losers into oblivion in the '76 League Cup Final (Yes I know it's the last thing we won, Rags.) That year the Mags finished 15th in the league for the 3rd consecutive season. So, trendy collar does not equal success.

Moving to a more contemporary era, because basically nothing happened in the 1980s, the ill-fated Mags go and choose the ill-fated NTL as their sponsor, resulting in this, which many might see as the template for the more modern fashions. Here, the stripes have widened, like the club's ambition, and the old Newky Brown sponsors have gone, just like the brewery which once stood by the side of the ground.

This one from 2002 screams Blairite ambition, corporate sponsorship and largesse. This is the era of Blair and Keegan doing keepy-uppies together on the news. The club actually finished 3rd, but the shirt's a fashion disaster.

And finally, perhaps the most infamous of recent shirts, the one worn by the ludicrously-overpaid Owen/Butt/Smith/Barton et al, as the primadonna softies nosedive ignominiously to failure and financial meltdown.

It's mainly black, like the mood of the supporters.

I visited the ground several times in this period, and each time you couldn't get away from the ground because there was a mass protest of some kind against the team/owners/directors/staff/programme sellers/ice cream man.

I mean, look at them in this picture. They look like they don't have a clue. Meanwhile, they are laughing all the way to the bank.

Oh, hang on, the bank's Northern Rock.

Position: relegated.

Burn this shirt, if you have one.

So, what have we learned? That there is an inverse relationship between the modernity and fashionability of the club's shirt and its success on the field.

But it is when one begins to look at the away kits that the real horror begins.

It's as if, starved of a creative output by the sheer boredom of redesigning black and white stripes, the shirt designers went all Jackson Pollock on the away kit.

I cannot possibly do justice to the sheer horror of the away kit situation historically by highlighting any individual kit. The yellow peril of last season is simply carrying on a tradition.

This site expresses the nastiness in (thankfully) graphic rather than photographic terms:
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.historicalkits.co.uk/Newcastle_United/photos/newcastle-2004-away-400.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.historicalkits.co.uk/Newcastle_United/Newcastle_United-change-kits.html&usg=__FHgHRqu5zRtauZ03eb0suyWi8kY=&h=484&w=400&sz=36&hl=en&start=73&sig2=6REp6YKxp_lPMa9r_PkeqA&itbs=1&tbnid=5Ll61LxLX_R80M:&tbnh=129&tbnw=107&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dnewcastle%2Bunited%2Bfootball%2Bkit%26start%3D60%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26gbv%3D2%26ndsp%3D20%26tbs%3Disch:1&ei=SWEOTOmmNoue_gbdv923DA

I think the 1914 away kit is ultra-cool and should immediately be adopted as the first team kit.

I have no idea what was going on in 1951 but Sunderland fans will be horrified.

In '73 the club apparently thought it was Brazil, despite clear evidence to the contrary.

In '83 the real horror begins with the grey Newky Brown monstrosity. I assume like Man U in the same period they excused their rank crapness by saying they couldn't see each other against the crowd.

Then it just goes mental.

1990 is vomit on a Norwich shirt. '93 looks like the sea has washed in and taken away with it any vestige of style. '93 also has a 3rd kit so puerile it looks like a South American prisoner who has escaped into in the jungle is using it as camouflage to escape detection.

'95 is a rugby shirt.

'97 simply defies description.

Adidas get hold of it and have a go for a few years but eventually they lose interest and hire Jackson Pollock again for the execrable 2005 and poncey 2007 3rd kit.

In 2008 they decide they want to be Fiorentina - a theme continued with last year's 3rd kit in which they want to be Inter Milan.

But, senator, they are no Inter Milan.

Which brings us full circle to the bananas and custard of last year.

Somewhere, there is some poor bastard who has spent his entire life savings on this tat.

I can't wait for next year. Remember the rule - the crapper the shirt the better the team do.

Gok Wan is filing his nails as we speak....