A-league Kits Could be Improved

Another season of the Hyundai A-league has concluded, and what a season it's been. Big crowds, classic matches, lots of spectacular goals. Next season promises to be another year of improvement for the league - two new teams are set to enter the competition (the Gold Coast Galaxy and North Queensland Thunder), which will mean an extra game will take place each week and the season will last a bit longer.

One thing I would like to see improved in the A-league (it may not be the biggest issue the A-leauge faces, but I think it's something the fans are quite interested in) is the quality and variety of the kits that the teams wear. The home kits are generally quite good, although plain, however 7 out of the 8 teams have a predominantly white away kits. For those of us who go often attend our local A-league team's matches, this means we always see the same colour teams.

For the next season of the A-league, Reebok will be redesigning the away shirts for many of the A-league teams, they will also be creating new kits for the two new sides. As a result I have decided to have a go myself - and see if I can create a bit more variety and a few more interesting kits for the (soon to be) 10 A-league sides. I have kept most of the current home kits the same, apart from a couple of teams which I have decided could do with a new home kit as well.

For the record, I would like the league to continue with it's policy of forcing teams to wear away kits whenever they are playing away from home (in the regular A-league season), however as some of my new away kits would create clashes there will have to be exceptions to that rule.

Adelaide United

The home kit is the same as it is now, while the away kit is predominantly yellow. I think the away kit has a nice look to it, although it does clash with the Central Coast's home strip, meaning Adelaide would always need to wear their home strip against the Mariners.

Central Coast Mariners

I've kept these kits exactly the same. The current Mariners kits are some of the more interesting ones in the league and they look great.

Melbourne Victory

Again I've kept these kits the same. Melbourne are really the only club to have a distinctive style to their shirt (with the V), and this should not be changed (although a slight change might be a good idea).

Newcastle United Jets

Newcastle's gold home kit looks very nice so I have kept it the same, however I would like to see the 'traditional' colours of Newcastle (the red and blue) used in the away kit - stripes would look great. Potentially you could use the red and blue for the home colours.

Perth Glory

Perth is largely unchanged, although I've added hoops, which I think looks great and gives them a slightly new image - something they desperately need.

Queensland Roar

I'm sure most would agree that the current Queensland kit looks terrible. The colours of Orange and Marooan can go together and look great, but Queensland have done a shocking job of it with their current strip. I believe my attempt is a lot better, mainly because it is simple. I've used the blue as an away kit.

Sydney FC

I've kept Sydney's kit's the same - the relatively plain, sky-blue home strip is perfect for them and their away kit has always been one of my favourite A-league strips.

Wellington Phoenix

Wellington fans were hoping for black and yellow stripes for their first season in the A-league, hopefully after Wellington proved that they could pull a decent crowd reebok might oblige - it can't be that hard to take a kit and add stripes to it. Their current away kit is fine.

Now it's a little harder to attempt to design kits for the new A-league sides, the Gold Coast Galaxy and North Queensland Thunder - it is not even 100% confirmed that both sides will enter the A-leauge next season. Both sides have, however, tentitavely announced their colours - the Thunder will use red, black and white while the Galaxy will be yellow and blue.

Gold Coast Galaxy

Blue and Yellow go together very well, and I've given them a sash in the style of one of Boca Juniors' classic strips. I decided to add green trimming to their home kit, and then use it, along with yellow, for the away strip - I did this mainly becuase no other A-league side has green in any of their kits.

North Queensland Thunder

North Queensland said their colours of red, black and white were inspired by Manchester United - so I expect their kit will look a little like that of the red devils, I've given them a black away strip.

As I said earlier, this is not a massive issue for the A-leauge, but I'm sure that most A-leauge fans would like to see a little more variety when it comes to A-leauge kits. The various different colours of away strips and shorts would mean that sides will have to be a little more flexible when it comes to the uniform they wear. For example, North Queensland would have to wear their home kit when they travel to Melbourne - and when Perth travels to Queensland they should wear their away shirt, with their home purple shorts - otherwise both sides would have the same colour shorts, which would be annoying for TV viewers.

Now obviously these aren't going to be the exact kits that we see next year, but I certainly hope that Reebok and the A-league sides are a little more creative than in the past - and I also hope they take a look at a couple of home kits and decide to update those as well as doing a comprehensive update of away kits.

Here's an image of all my kits together (click to enlarge):

Bye for now,

Matt