What is your dream kit lineup?
It's the close season, the Euros don't start until the end of next week, and I don't know about the rest of you, but I don't have much work to do. So let's do this instead.
Pick your fantasy kit lineup - 1x home, 1x away, 1x third (doesn't have to be an actual third kit, could just be an away one) and 2x keeper. It's like picking your dream five a side team, but it somehow matters even less. Bonus points if you avoid clashing.
Some resources to use to refresh your memory:
- https://www.footballkitarchive.com/everton-kits
- http://historicalkits.co.uk/Everton/Everton.htm
- http://historicalkits.co.uk/Everton/Everton-change-kits.html
- https://www.oldfootballshirts.com/en/teams/e/everton/old-everton-football-shirts-t8.html
- https://www.google.com
For me:
I really liked the Le Coq Sportif shirts, and this one is just about perfect for me. I like the clean design and the little amber highlights, which is a sorely underused colour for us. It conjures memories of those brief few months where Nikica Jelavic was the second coming of Filippo Inzaghi. The 14-15 Umbro shirt is a close second. The 18-19 one) was also really nice with that textured pattern, but sadly let down by the Angry Birds on the sleeve and those repeated Umbro logos on the cuffs. Also, fuck SportPesa while we're at it.
I thought about going with the 08-09 away shirt or the 96-97 one I had as a kid, but it has to be the 09-10 kit. Again, it's Le Coq, and I think it's one of the coolest fucking shirts we've ever had. Neon pink pinstripes on black? Are you kidding me? More of this. I think they wore it about twice all season.
Special mention to the 10-11 third kit for that subtle off-white colouring, because again I just loved some of those Le Coq shirts and it makes me think of Leon Osman although I can't find any pictures of him in it. I also really liked that Hummel one from 21-22. But I'm going with the 93-94 shirt. This one's from a little before my time as I only really started to follow football from 94-95, but it's great and it contrasts nicely with my pick for the away shirt. However, I can't find any pictures of it being worn in a match - it was from the same season as the salmon and navy away kit, which probably didn't clash with anyone in the world. Man City had the same shirt though, so just imagine this is Barry Horne and you'll get the idea.
The most recent pick on my list, the 21-22 shirt has it all. Green, ie the proper colour for a goalkeeper. Stripy. A little bit different without going overboard. Short sleeves wouldn't be my choice, but obviously Pickford is insane and I'm not going to argue with him. I expect a fair few people will choose the 13-14 home kit and for sure it's pretty good, but for me it loses points because of the Fisher Price badge and because Nike just gave us their standard templates for everything that season. There were probably dozens of other teams with the same kit.
I'm sure there'll be some picks for the 11-12 home keeper kit from the Tim Howard nostalgists, but I'm choosing the away one from that season. Same camo design, but a little less garish than the green one. The 22-23 away shirt is also good, but I can't pick two black and pink kits. That's just greedy.
While we're at it - what was the worst year for kits?
Any of the Puma years for me. I didn't like many of them at the time and pretty much all of those weirdly billowy shirts have aged very poorly and serve mainly as reminders of Walter Smith's geriatric squads or the unbridled horror of seeing Richard Wright in goal. 17-18 was also particularly bad - the away kit was acceptable, but Umbro lost the plot with the rest of them. Navy and purple bars with lime highlights? Blue with dark blue panels? What were they thinking. At least they served as a solid metaphor of our transfer strategy that season, because there was clearly not much cohesive thinking going on.
