I don't usually write on B/R about Football, but I love the game and was recently surfing the web after England's dismal performance against Spain (proof that Gareth Barry is nowhere near the player Steven Gerrard is for England, and Gerrard plays nowhere near at the top of his game for England).

Anyway, after about half an hour I came across the "supposed" new England home kit.

I'm always interested in what kits look like, and after nearly every kit this year in the Premier League was pretty damn nice (the Liverpool home shirt being my favourite, but then again, I am an LFC fan), so after realising that it was time for a new England kit after I saw the recent one selling for £4, I had high expectations, so boy, was I in for a disappointment.

Umbro have denied that this is real, but it looks pretty real to me, and they said last year's wasn't real when that was leaked too. Supposedly we weren't supposed to see this until the game against Slovakia (great game to debut a kit in?).

This kit is probably the worst kit I've seen an England team wear since I can remember (I'm only 14, but that's still a pretty long time). Everything about it looks cheap and the first time I saw it I thought it was the training shirt.

The Umbro logo above the badge makes the shirt look unbalanced and the red around the badge looks tacky. Not to mention the fact that Umbro seemed to have lifted the collar from a pre-WWII shirt.

Plus, the red on the sleeves has been overdone and is one of the many things that make the kit lose its "English feel." And one last thing: where the hell is the star? I know it's been 40 odd years, but it still should be there.

The FA once again have stuck with Umbro, and yet again Umbro have come back with a crap design. The FA should do what they did at Coventry (I think) and choose 4 designs and let the fans vote (it is a bloody democracy after all).

What I don't understand is even though Umbro have been bought by Nike, we still choose to have Umbro making overcomplicated, cheap and poor-looking kits.

Why the hell hasn't Brian Barwick or someone in the FA gone to Nike and said, "Hey, you guys make pretty decent kits" and have a Nike kit with a similar design to the Villa shirt.

Or chosen to drop Nike and Umbro and have adidas make the kits; I can't see adidas turning the offer down when apparently the shirt is going to sell at £50.

On the plus side, though, they have dropped the navy blue shorts for all white.

Personally, I think that after the 1966 World Cup, the England home kit should be red with white shorts and have it made in a similar design to the Liverpool and Chelsea away kits.

Obviously, the FA still have a bit of time to change the design but that's extremely unlikely. So please comment about your thoughts on the "new England home kit."

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