The build up had been going on for weeks, with the first teasers of the new kit advertised on the hoardings surrounding the pitch during Spurs’ final home League game against Manchester City. “Glory Comes In Three Colours” read the tagline, and Spurs fans collectively shrugged at the thought of having another 3 kits for the fourth season in a row. Since the Puma deal started in the 2005-2006 season, Spurs have had 13 new outfield player kits and 8 goalkeeper kits, plus 2 Carling Cup Final limited editions.

Being a Spurs fan is not cheap, even in these heady times of the Premiership. Whilst theirs plenty of money floating around, it still isn’t driving down the cost of supporting Tottenham in particular. Yet, being a fan, you kind of get used to the expense over the years. You don’t fully accept it, but you can’t help supporting the team you love can you? When it’s an emotional attachment, all common sense goes out of the window.

Yet, I couldn’t help but feel really disappointed with the new kits, especially the home shirt in the leaked images that were floating around the internet. It just didn’t look right and I was hoping it would be the same as the awful mock up’s of the England kit that were flying about only to be disproved when the real thing was released.  Some fans had certainly been vocal in their hostility to it, whilst others refused to believe the images were real.

So with a large fanfare, and microsite publicising the release of the new kits, Tottenham could relax in the knowledge that the fans would be fine with whatever they were served up. They were wrong though. Within minutes of the kits finally being revealed to the fans, text messages, facebook profiles and  twitter accounts began to show the real feelings of the fans. In general, they hated the new home kit.

A petition was quickly set up, yidsagainstyellow and as of today, it’s reached almost 2,700 signatures. So I rang the club to ask them what they feel about this response. Suffice to say, they’ve ignored it and tried to sell the kit to me! I advised them that unless they’d give it away, I wasn’t interested but they still wanted £45.00 so I passed. Ah well.

I must admit I’m a little bit staggered by the response, if I’m honest. Whilst I hate it, due to the yellow stripes and dabs on it, I didn’t expect anyone else to dislike as much. In fact, I’m quite shocked just how many people do hate it but I think it shows just how much fan interaction has come on through the internet. From the formation of F.C. United, to the purchase of Ebbsfleet by members of myfootballclub.com to the Spirit of Shankly group, fans can now interact without having to meet face to face.

If anything, I really dislike the fact that football clubs decide on new kits without consulting the fans. Whether football clubs like it or not, it is an important barometer of the clubs status to see shirts being worn other than on a match day. If you have the audacity of Tottenham in regards to kit releases, 13 in 4 season of the Puma deal and an incredible 35 different home, away, third and limited edition shirts in 12 seasons, the club HAS to take the fans opinions in account. Why aren’t they asked what they like? After all, they’re the ones who will be wearing it!

Will the club listen? It does seem as if a ground swell of support is building, which includes boycotting all three of the kits unless the home strip is changed, though hopefully we’ll not see a repeat of the Athletico Madrid fans, who firebombed the club shop because Nike changed the stripes to halves. I suppose it’s all down to money, but it would be nice if Tottenham’s chairman, Daniel Levy, actually came out, admit they’ve got this very wrong and try and rectify it. Just change the yellow trim to blue and hey presto! Nice kit.

Pre-Order The New Tottenham Home Kit Today

Pre-order the new home Tottenham Hotspur shirt or kit today so you’ll be the first to get it. UK residents can order here through Kitbag, while US residents can order here, through Kitbag USA.

Related Posts:

• Interview with Alan Mullery,
• Journey from America to White Hart Lane,
• Photo slideshow Of pilgrimage to White Hart Lane,
• Official Photographs of Tottenham Home, Away and Third Shirts For 09/10 Season.

There’s a financial crisis at an English football club. No, it’s not the obvious candidate of Newcastle United, where Mike Ashley has only just begun to attend games again after the police warned him about threats to his well-being. Not Chelsea, where the Russian oligarch owner seems to hemorrhage billions a day and the English red tops openly challenge that his interest in the SW6 outfit is dropping just as quickly. I’m talking the biggest, most important purchase of 2008: Ebbsfleet United Football Club.

The Blue Square Premiership outfit was the football feel good story of the 2008. After generations of supporters chanting “Sack the board,”“Owners OUT!” and “You don’t know what you’re doing,” over 53,000 myfootballclub.co.uk members joined the cause, decided to put their money where their mouth was, and buy a club. That’s really where the warning signs started to show.

Will Brooks, the creator of myfootballclub.co.uk figured that 50,000 members would establish a war chest of £1.3 million to use toward establishing ownership of a club. While official membership numbers topped 53,000 only about 30,000 eventually ponied up the cash (£35) to make it happen. In fact, when it came time to actually vote on the purchase of “The Fleet,” MyFootballClub.co.uk boasted over 95% support. But that was only 95% of about 18,000 voting members. Only about 35% of the actual members of MyFootballClub.co.uk showed the staying power to actually vote.

Nevertheless, hysteria ran high around the Ebbsfleet purchase, buoyed by press coverage unprecedented for a club so far down the English football league system. With promises of votes to choose everything from kit supplier (Nike decided that the grassroots movement was too good for a multinational to pass up and voters lapped up the offer a swoosh-laden kit) to selecting the weekly lineup, fans of “real football” jumped on board to the tune of 30,000 members. The club even went out and earned their first trip to Wembley, winning the FA Trophy in the process. Emotions were running high.

However, simple math points out that while 30,000 paid up supporters is impressive and almost twice as many as voted for the initial take over, it is still 40% short of the 50,000+ who agreed to pay up before money was actually expected. “Own the club, pick the team” was the rallying cry for owning members, but apparently fewer than 500 actually participated in the vote to decide who gets to pick the team. Thankfully, gaffer Liam Daish was spared the blushes of managerial emasculation, but more concerning is the undeniable fact that the sincerity of the MyFootballClub.co.uk owners was, pardon the pun, “fleeting” from the start.

The Ebbsfleet experiment is now just a shade over a year old. It’s time for owners to renew their membership. Instead of funds, however, it appears that excuses seem to be flowing in.

No doubt, we’re going to hear those two words everyone is sick and tired of hearing: “credit” and “crunch.” The global financial phenomenon that reduced Ashley to only hundreds of millions of pounds, and Roman Abramovich to his last handful of billions will legitimately cost little Ebbsfleet some of its owners. Especially at this time of year, with Christmas bills still sitting in the “to pay” file, finding an extra £35 can be a little tricky. But it would be disingenuous to blame the drop in support entirely on finances. Clearly, the club with a revolutionary ownership scheme is little more than the Christmas puppy who grew up. The novelty has worn off and it just doesn’t seem so cute anymore. If not for the international press, I bet that less than 1% of owners had even heard of Ebbsfleet United before MyFootballClub.co.uk started throwing the name around, and far fewer would have gone so far as to name “the fleet” as their favorite, or even one of their “pet clubs”. The interest was in owning “a” club, not Ebbsfleet, and now that’s it’s time pay up, far too many fair weather fans are abandoning the Fleet.

It is true that the initial purchase helped Ebbsfleet United cover a £500,000 debt, but the false dawn of the irresponsible of the MyFootballClub.co.uk venture has now left the club in a dangerous position of being too big for its budget. If MyFootballClub.co.uk walks away, it will be the Fleet that needs to do some heavy financial bailing. Before long, Ebbsfleet will be back to the financial dire straits it faced just a year ago. With a misleading financial package at the basis of its budget, it won’t be long before they’re in more trouble than ever before.

In the meantime, the MyFootballClub.co.uk “owners” can all get together for a rousing chorus of “We don’t know what we’re doing!” If you can find enough of them.