By Cherry Picker
July 19 2011

With more than four weeks to go to the first pre-season friendly and even longer to the opening competitive match at Northampton, there are plenty of reasons to be cheerful for the fans as Gloucester launch their new strips and study the fixtures for the Heineken Cup.

But that won’t stop the pessimists worrying about the state of the Kingsholm squad while others pick fault with the new shirt designs.

The list of moans is growing steadily … the hoops aren’t hoops they are bands, there are too many fiddly bits, the black away strip looks like Saracens, the red is wrong, the adverts are too big, etc etc etc.

But you watch them fly out of the shop over the next few weeks and when the first game comes around, spot how many are wearing them. Let’s face it, it’s not the shirts that matters, it’s what’s inside that counts.

Professional rugby has to make money at every opportunity, and selling club shirts is one of the most lucrative ways of doing so. So as often as they dare, clubs like Glaws change the strip in order to sell more to those who just can’t live without the latest in rugby ground chic.

It’s called business, no matter what you think of the jazzy designs and the fact that for no apparent reason black has been introduced for away shirts.

Gloucester Rugby's head of sales and marketing Pete Grzonka told the Citizen: "Reminiscent of Gloucester Rugby's traditions, history and heritage this year's home shirt features the traditional club hoops but with a modern twist.

"This year's away shirt colour offers a move away from the traditional Gloucester red and opens up a whole range of leisure wear options to fans based on its ox blood print.”

Yeah, right Pete … roughly translated that means the shirts have been tweaked so we can sell more, and the black introduces a new line.

To be fair he added: "We have also made the decision that we will keep the cherry and white hooped design for two seasons."

So it will be 2013 before the fashionistas feel the need to fork out again.

Meanwhile, Glaws have learned that they will travel to france to play Toulouse on November 13 and are then at home to Harlequins the following weekend.

They face Connacht away on December 10 and are at home to the Irish side a week later. The game at Harlequins and at home to toulouse will be fixed later.

Glaws launch latest shirt designs

Discussion started by Shedloads (IP Logged), 19/07/2011 12:39

Shedloads
19/07/2011 12:39

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