Southampton FC have announced the arrival of their new 3rd team kit, it is surprisingly good after several atrocious previous efforts from both the club and the hummel designers, but like the 1st & 2nd kits it seems a little familiar.

Southampton FC have announced their new 3rd kit.

Those who were around in 1987 will tell you that the hummel kit back then, now replicated for the coming season, was not the most popular kit in the history of the club, indeed it was the this kit that gave the fledging Ugly Inside fanzine the impetus to start the first of it's campaigning causes.

Save Our Stripes or SOS for short started the ball rolling in 1988 and in the summer of 1989, Saints announced that the next hummel kit would indeed be red & white stripes as it should be.

It should be noted here that I haven't forgotten to spell hummel with a capital H, the company itself is call hummel and not Hummel, you learn something new everyday on this website.

hummel started their new partnership with the club in 2021/22 where they left off, a fine shirt in red & white stripes with a 2nd kit of yellow & blue and a 3rd kit of black shirts with red trim.

The following season they went downhill fast, the home shirt will not be remembered fondly, not just for the poor performances in it, especially at St Mary's, but due to the fact that it was more Fulham than Saints, for a club whose predominant colour is red, who ever designed it at hummel and approved it at the club forgot all about it, in a design that had barely any red in it, it was almost as if someone at the last minute had remembered the red and run a paintbrush with red paint on it down the front.

The 2nd kit was bright but a rip off of Newport County's a year previously, even the promotional blurb was almost the same and the 3rd kit was a camouflage colour.

This season hummel have shown absolutely no imagination in any of the 3 designs, the first two can be accused of being exact replicas of the home kit from 1987-89 and the away kit from 1989-91, they both look nice and those that like a bit of nostalgia will like them, but the truth is they show no imagination whatsoever.

2023/24
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1987/88

So it was hoped the 3rd kit might be a bit different, well it is to a degree, I have to admit that the black with gold trim looks rather fetching and yes it does have a few wavy patterns, according to the club, "taking inspiration from our proximity to the New Forest, the black third shirt features a camouflage-like tree pattern in black "

But wasn't our 3rd kit a plain black one two years ago.

Then in some respects it is very similar to last seasons 3rd kit, just with green in it, that as the club put it "The dark green and black shirt features a subtle detail design, taking reference from propellor blades." and yes later in the blurb it "take inspiration"

So the verdict on this kit is that it looks nice but the bulk of it will not look much different from a distance to last season's 3rd kit, just a bit darker but with yellow chevrons.

Overall a bit of laziness has crept in from both club and supplier, they have just gone for two straight forward replicas for the first two kits and then a variation on a theme (or two themes) for the 3rd kit.

I suspect that all three kits will prove popular, I can't really fault the first two for capturing the nostalgia and those who bought either kit 35 years or so ago will probably be unlikely to fir into the shirt they bought back then even if they still have it.

So 8/10 for plundering the nostalgia market, 8/10 for the colour schemes and 2/10 for actually having to sit down and use a bit of imagination.

Photo: Action Images

Ifonly added 13:12 - Jul 24 I can't think of any other club that is so confused about what kit it plays in. We hear a lot of crep from people about the club about our "identity", by which they mean some pissy little tactic that is the lastest fad on the training ground or playing a team full of kids. Well red and white stripes are a much bigger part of our identity than that sh1t. It's time the club started respecting that.

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Monksway added 16:17 - Jul 24 So which kit do we wear at Sheffield Wednesday? I'd assumed the home shirt with red shorts.
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YosemiteSaint added 22:59 - Jul 24 I've always considered hummel a top football brand. Their kits are persuading me otherwise these days, though. And some of the Saints sweatshirts i've got from them in recent years feel like sauna suits; they don't breathe at all (although, as a defender who has mobility issues in my older age, perhaps this suits me).
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LoisDeem added 15:30 - Jul 25 It's the right colours, just the wrong way around. Far too expensive, as well. Would be interested to see if Saints could do an offer on additional purchases of second and third shirts -a family offer, or even buy two get one free? Come on, it's high time someone came back within our orbit on these prices. "Scandalous!", he cried, especially during the school holidays.

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