Ed Carter nominates a special kit once worn by his favourite club, Brighton & Hove Albion...
"Choosing a favourite Brighton and Hove Albion kit is a little like trying to pick your favourite of the kids who bullied you at school. The whole process throws up all kinds of memories, some of which you had previously pushed deep down inside for very good reasons. In the end, I've gone back to the beginning and chosen the kit that would have been the first kit I actually saw the Albion play in with my own eyes.
"Actually, as I am old and my memory is not what it was, this may not be true: by the time I first visited the Goldstone Ground, Brighton may have in fact begun their association with Sports Express; a similar design that featured red trim on both the shorts and stockings (good) and solid white sleeves on the jersey (less good). However, the Spall offering from the 1988/89 season had pretty much everything I want from an Albion kit. Pretty much. Proper stripes, with no liberties taken with colour, width or spacing. Blue shorts. And the sponsor: no less than that noted maker of office equipment that adorned our efforts between 1986 and 1991, NOBO. All branding and numbering was in red, as it should be. Such is the depth of my conviction on the issue of Spall's superiority over Sports Express, it is quite possible that the 1988/89 vintage was, indeed, the first one I saw my team turn out in. I wish I had better recall for football-based issues.
"Complaints? Well, firstly, the stockings were blue, rather than white, but that's just a personal preference thing. Brighton did pair proper stripes, red logos and blue shorts with white stockings during the mid-1990s. However, by then the sponsors were Sandtex rather than NOBO and the club was in a freefall which had started to look very much like a state of terminal decline: a time that it is rather harder to feel nostalgic about. Secondly, while the pinstripes on the shorts are just about acceptable, it is the thin end of a wedge that was soon to bring us the monstrous over-indulgence of the strip Albion would wear between 1991 and 1993, more commonly known as the Tesco Bag and easily found in any gallery of The Worst Football Kits Of All Time that you care to mention.
"I'm increasingly of a mind that I would like to see a return to the Phoenix Brewery-sponsored solid blue shirts of the 1980s, last seen in the 1986/87 season. A similarly detailed and trimmed blue shirt to those offerings, paired with white shorts and socks (to maintain a proper ratio of white to blue), could be quite irresistible, particularly if it were accompanied by a return to the Adidas fold. Maybe if the Albion stay in the Premier League this season we should treat ourselves? The prospects are looking pretty good, if the results of this extensive scientific survey are anything to go by.
"Essentially, Brighton's kits have been a series of disappointments and compromises throughout the thirty years I have been supporting them. All of this could be easily remedied if they would just see sense and let me design their kit from now on. The home strip would be a white shirt with blue stripes, blue shorts and white socks, with all numbering and lettering picked out in red. The change colours would be pink, like the venerable Chewits kit of the early 1990s. And it would be sponsored by NOBO."
Many thanks to Ed for suggesting this splendid kit as part of our series. If you haven't already seen Ed's fantastic artwork, go check it out on his Facebook page. This man deserves all the encouragement and support you can muster.
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