MLS kit quiz at Sporcle

Just a quick wee Sunday morning post pointing you in the direction of this MLS 2012 kit quiz over at Sporcle which will test your knowledge of this season's shirts in the USA and Canada.

Baltimore Blast T Shirt

For this post I am heading over Stateside and a Baltimore Blast t shirt from the Major Indoor Soccer League (MISL). I first became aware of indoor soccer in the US when reading the excellent Soccer in a Football World which detailed how indoor soccer endured in North America through and between the NASL and MLS eras.

I have visited Maryland quite a few times of the last few years but usually when the MLS season has finished so I have researched MISL as an alternative. As yet I have yet to been able to see the Blast which would be my closest team but hopefully I will be able to see a match in next trip.

I got this t shirt on the Baltimore Blast website and I must say they were most patient as the US Postal Service conspired to return my t shirt to sender. As any self respecting #kitnerd (h/t @kitnerd on Twitter) knows sometimes a bit of persistence can go a long way so with the help of my in-laws a bit of Baltimore Blast memorabilia is now safely ensconced here in Belfast.

Newcastle United Paper Football Shirts

As mentioned a few times already on this blog I am partial to a bit of impulse buying on eBay. I am always on the look out for football kit related items and I liked these little Newcastle United home shirts in origami form.

I am not sure what use I have for them now but anyway, always good to add to the Wayward collection.....

Gloryland - 1994 World Cup Official Album

I previously blogged about the USA Home shirt from the 1994 World Cup and it is a tournament I return to for this post. The inspiration for this came from the Beautiful Game album post I did a while back and I thought I would see what music was selected for the official 1994 World Cup album - 'Gloryland' or as it was also known as 'Soccer Rocks the Globe'.

Unlike Italia 90, which had Nessun Dorma so closely tied to it, I could not really think of music associated with USA 94 so buying this album was a bit of a shot in the dark.

The track listing for the album is below:

1. Queen - "We Are the Champions"
2. Daryl Hall & Sounds Of Blackness - "Gloryland"
3. James - "Goal, Goal, Goal"
4. The Crowd - "Anthem (Olé, Olé, Olé, Olé/Aida)"
5. Tears For Fears - "New Star"
6. The Moody Blues - "This Is the Moment"
7. Fleetwood Mac - "Blow By Blow"
8. Stelle Azzurre - "Italia Ancora (Italy Once More)"
9. Jon Bon Jovi - "Blaze of Glory"
10. Tina Turner - "The Best"
11. Gary Glitter - Rock 'n' Roll '94 (Parts I & II) Live
12. Kool & the Gang - "Celebration '94" (Remix)
13. Scorpions - "No Pain, No Gain"
14. Santana - "Luz, Amor Y Vida"
15. Daryl Hall - "Move On Up"
16. Peter Koelewijn & Gerry Marsden - "You'll Never Walk Alone
17. Glory Featuring Snake Davis - "Gloryland (Emotion Mix)

Looking at the UK charts at the time it is noticeable a lack of impact of the World Cup, undoubtedly due to the failure of England and Scotland to qualify. The biggest selling single during the 1994 World Cup was Wet Wet Wet's cover of Love Is All Around and the charts had plenty of early 90s flavour with Ace of Base, China Black, Aswad and Big Mountain selling plenty of singles. 

The relative lack of impact on the charts is exemplified by the fact that the Daryl Hall and Sounds of Blackness track Gloryland only reached number 36 in the UK charts. And the BBC failed to replicate the success of their 1990 World Cup theme as America from West Side Story failed to make the top 40.

In general I would say the songs on Gloryland fall into a few categories. There are the pretty standard sports anthems such as The Best, We Are the Champions, and Rock and Roll Parts I&II. Then you have a few of what I think are pretty unnecessary cover versions - You'll Never Walk Alone, Celebration '94 and Move on Up. And finally there are few nice hidden gems I had never heard of before such as James' song Goal, Goal, Goal which is a re-recording of their track Low, Low, Low and apparently was a possible England team song had they qualified.

The title track is a bit too much like a Disney song from the Lion King for me but I suppose it serves a purpose in being anthemic.

I like the liner notes in the CD which as well as containing the usual info about the songs also had a nice little guide to the teams competing in the USA that year with their flags, a description of their home kits, their previous World Cup record and famous current and past players.

Below are a couple of tracks from the album, Gloryland and James' song Goal, Goal, Goal.

Australia Home Shirt 2010-2012

Since I have started this blog I have tried to expand the geographical range of my shirts, especially since beginning the mapping my shirts page on here.

As a kid the range of shirts that I had access to was entirely dependent on what my local sports shops had and how much pocket money I had saved up. As a result my kit choices definitely kept to a UK theme and in particular Liverpool FC but I always liked to look at other teams' kit designs.

So far on this blog I have featured teams from Europe, North and South America and Asia and finally now I get to Australasia with this home shirt from Nike for Australia for 2010-2012.

When I first started following football in the early 1990s I associated the Socceroos with narrow failures to qualify for successive World Cups, with even El Tel unable to achieve qualification for France 98.

Australia broke their qualification hoodoo to take a place at both World Cup 2006 in Germany and 2010 in South Africa where they sported this home shirt from Nike. I love the colours in the shirt and in particular the shade of green used. I like two large blocks of green and gold separated by the simple white stripe across the front of the shirt. However, I do think the little badge with Australia on the back of the shirt is unnecessary and does not really add anything.

The shirt features Dri-Fit technology which Nike claims is:

"a high-tech proprietary fabric developed by Nike which quickly moves sweat to the outer layer of the fabric, away from your skin, where it can quickly evaporate. The result is that you have a dry, cool fabric against your skin even when heat and humidity levels are high"

Unfortunately for the Socceroos they were eliminated at the group stage following defeat to hosts Germany, a draw with Ghana and their victory over Serbia which I have included video of below.

Premier League kit deals total £90 million

I thought this was good comparison of how the Premier League kit deals compare with other European leagues:

The combined value of kit supplier contracts for England’s 20 top-flight sides this season hit £90 million. However Premier League clubs’ shirts are still the cheapest in all of Europe’s top five domestic football competitions.

The figures taken form the 2012 European Football Kit Supplier Report by SPORT+MARKT and PR Marketing show England’s top flight leads the way in Europe when it comes to attracting investment from sports equipment manufacturers, with clubs averaging £4.5 million income from kit supply deals in season 2011/12. The average value of such deals across Europe’s ‘big five’ leagues is a substantially lower £2.7 million.

It would be interesting to see how much variations there are within leagues and whether the gap between the biggest deals and the rest is getting bigger all the time.

How important are shirt sponsors to the finances of soccer teams? - Quora Question

I signed up to Quora a while back and have saw a few interesting football related pieces of information addressed over there.

I thought the answers to the question 'How important are shirt sponsors to the finances of soccer teams?' were pretty informative in putting fairly solid data behind the deals teams sign with sponsors. 

It is interesting shirt sponsorship stands at about 5% of total revenue for clubs but this now lags way behind the money gained from broadcasting rights deals. I wonder if more clubs will follow the example of Manchester United and sign separate sponsor deals for their training kit as a way of squeezing more money from shirt sponsorship?