Comments on: Goals (Rémy’s) and Excuses (Mine)

By: ursus arctos

ursus arctos — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 14:19:24 +0000

Don’t encourage me.

But since you have, here are three other essential sites for kit obsessives:

http://www.historicalkits.co.uk/ (the UK, since the dawn of professional football)

http://www.classicfootballshirts.co.uk/ (the world since the 80s, not comprehensive, but featuring photos rather than drawings)

http://www.colours-of-football.com/ (very high quality drawings of kits from around the world since about 2000).

By: Martha

Martha — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 11:42:24 +0000

The whole thing has been very odd — they picked me without asking a single question, clear evidence that glowering at everyone is NOT a way to get rejected. I played it all wrong.

I should have known you’d have the answer to the sponsor question, Ursus, thank you! That’s a fascinating, very appealing little quirk. And thanks for the link to the Nice kits, I’ll enjoy digging through that and getting an education.

By: ursus arctos

ursus arctos — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 05:53:48 +0000

As a lawyer, I would love to have you on a jury, assuming that my client was indeed not guilty.

The sponsor isn’t new, and it isn’t OGCN’s. The Coupe de la Ligue features the same set of sponsors for every match from the opening round to the final, with teams being assigned either Sponsor A (a “white goods” manufacturer this year) or Sponsor B (yet another temp agency) by lot. Previous Coupes de la Ligue have featured mobile phone operators and candy bars.

This very French twist on sponsorship began with the Coupe de France in the early 70s and actually marked the introduction of shirt sponsorship in French football. Firms like Perrier, RTL (then just a radio station) and Calberson (a trucking company) got to put their names on the clubs’ shirts for the entire competition, even though sponsors had not yet made an appearance in the league.

On the extremely unlikely chance that anyone is as obsessed by football kits as I am, may I recommend the following incomparable site, which includes drawings of the kits of every winner of the Coupe de France and the Coupe de la Ligue, as well as illustrating the year by year of the kits of clubs in the French top flight since the war.

http://membres.lycos.fr/fanfoot51/sommaire.html

The OGCN kit history starts here: http://membres.lycos.fr/fanfoot51/dessins%20maillots/Nice/ogcn40.html