Whitecaps uniform disasters continue with 3rd poo-brown kit

June 14, 2012 at 1:31 pm | Posted in Whitecaps New Uniform and Logo, Whitecaps Season 2012 | 24 Comments

The Vancouver Whitecaps introduced their 3rd kit today. I had hoped the introduction of a third kit would reflect the tradition and history of the Vancouver Whitecaps, but it appears the front office are so ashamed or unaware of their own team’s history they would rather not reflect it in the team’s uniform.  I note that in a recent tour of the Whitecaps uniform on the Whitecaps site featuring Greg Zlazura, the 1979 Soccer Bowl winning uniform was not featured at all, and was only shown in the briefest manner. This is shameful, because the club’s history and that 1979 uniform are something to be proud of.

Recently the Portland Timbers revealed their design for a 3rd kit. The Timbers have taken the opportunity with their third kit to have a design which recalls the Timbers years in the North American Soccer League. It is a beauty, and it is clear the club has respect for its tradition and history. You can see it here: http://www.portlandtimbers.com/news/2011/12/timbers-third-kit-mixture-past-and-present. Rather than following this fine example, the Whitecaps front office have brought shame to the club.

All of this begs the question: what the hell is going on at the Whitecaps front office? The front office seems to have some kind of bizarre pathological desire to bury the 1979 uniform which reflects the best and most successful era of the club’s history. How can Bob Lenarduzzi (who draped his book in the colours of the classic 1979 uniform), and Carl Valentine live with themselves? They should have thrown their bodies in front of this project to stop it! Who is making these idiotic decisions?

With this new kit, we have gone down the path of the Vancouver Canucks: when you go to a Vancouver Canucks game, the crowd is wearing a messy array of past uniform disasters. The Whitecaps are now repeating this stupidity. The crowd will look like a messy pizza. It will look like it is supporting several different teams. This is not good for the club.

In any event, according to the soulless dictates of the Vancouver Whitecaps merchandising team, we will now have to resign ourselves to sitting next to idiots who want to show how clever and different they are by wearing poo-brown to a Vancouver Whitecaps game. Incredible.

I was starting to get used to the Whitecaps MLS uniforms, which I consider to be of very poor design and quality from both the Whitecaps and Adidas, now I will be subjected to watching the Whitecaps play in poo-brown for a reported four matches this season. I suppose our new chant for the team will be as follows: “we’re Martin Rennie’s shit-brown army!”

While this year’s Vancouver Whitecaps are an improvement on the field, the front office is performing very poorly indeed. John furlong’s first initiative with the club is an absolute disaster. While this has been planned for a long time before he arrived, he could have stopped it and brought forward a kit that we can be proud of as Vancouver Whitecaps fans. While our Cascadia rivals play to packed stadiums, BC place is only three quarters full for matches; actual attendance at matches has gone down since last year. Now to top it off we have to watch the team play in a poo-brown uniform.

It is time for our absentee owners to wake up to the reality that the front office is letting the team down. Co-owners Nash and Mallet in particular wax eloquent about attending matches when they were younger back in the 1970′s and early eighties, but did they ever see the team play in brown? Absolutely not! Where the hell are these guys?

While some may say the management of the team and the colour of its uniform are unrelated, I disagree. The Whitecaps ship is simply coasting out at sea, having lost its moorings both spiritually and operationally. It is time for the ownership group to wake up and make some demands of front office, or to do some strategic firings of people who are clearly under-performing.

While people have the right to do as they wish, I personally urge people not to buy this brown junk until we get a quality kit that we Whitecaps fans deserve. As a season ticket holder I find this move to be especially demoralizing. Messing with the clubs classic logo and uniform was bad enough, now we will have a team playing in poo-brown.

I certainly will not buy this brown rubbish.

If people wish to buy a real Vancouver Whitecaps jersey, they can do so from the following source: http://www.toffs.com/Vancouver/products/807/