O'Neills - New Kit Supplier (Confirmed)

[Barrs Court Red]

1 hour ago, phantom said:

Interesting people are still referring to a blue kit

It better be. I have an extra large bag of popcorn ready and waiting. 

[Wedontplayinblue]

1 hour ago, phantom said:

It's actually amusing now how much of the above post is incorrect 

So what is correct then Mr Knowledge, or is it a case of “I know a source and I can’t tell you as it will get him/her/they in trouble”

Edited July 31, 2023 by Wedontplayinblue

[phantom]

40 minutes ago, Wedontplayinblue said:

So what is correct then Mr Knowledge, or is it a case of “I know a source and I can’t tell you as it will get him/her/they in trouble”

All I will say is that I was part of a meeting with our CEO last Friday and know that the vast majority of what you have written is wrong 

Perhaps you should let us know how you disagree? 

[Bristol Rob]

17 minutes ago, phantom said:

All I will say is that I was part of a meeting with our CEO last Friday and know that the vast majority of what you have written is wrong 

Perhaps you should let us know how you disagree? 

Given the only point @Wedontplayinblue has made is that the new away kit is blue, is the 'vast majority' of their point that it wrong that it isn't blue, or that it is an obscure shade of blue?

(For the record, I don't care what colour we play in).

[phantom]

1 minute ago, Bristol Rob said:

Given the only point @Wedontplayinblue has made is that the new away kit is blue, is the 'vast majority' of their point that it wrong that it isn't blue, or that it is an obscure shade of blue?

(For the record, I don't care what colour we play in).

He said more than that

2 hours ago, Wedontplayinblue said:

I’m still shocked people are not getting it, 

The away kit will be blue, they are releasing it as late as possible as people can finish complaining/moaning about the third kit, then release the blue away kit just close enough to the start of the season or just after. 
 

The people who run the club are not stupid, they know a lot of people won’t be happy. 

 

[REDOXO]

From a personal perspective I’ll not be super keen on any blue kit. However I would not lose sleep over it. 
 

If Phantom says it’s not blue that’s good enough for me and if it is, as above. Perhaps it will change our luck. 

[steviestevieneville]

40 minutes ago, phantom said:

All I will say is that I was part of a meeting with our CEO last Friday and know that the vast majority of what you have written is wrong 

Perhaps you should let us know how you disagree? 

Was it mentioned how disappointed a lot of fans are with the new kit providers & the clubs choice of splat on the third kit ? 

[phantom]

1 minute ago, REDOXO said:

From a personal perspective I’ll not be super keen on any blue kit. However I would not lose sleep over it. 
 

If Phantom says it’s not blue that’s good enough for me and if it is, as above. Perhaps it will change our luck. 

Apologies for being a bit ambiguous, but I'm just saying that the majority of what Wedontplayinblue said above is wrong 

I'm sure you'll all appreciate I am not the person to be giving any specific details as it is still commercially sensitive and I would cause an absolute shit storm if it was all made public 

[phantom]

Just now, steviestevieneville said:

Was it mentioned how disappointed a lot of fans are with the new kit providers & the clubs choice of splat on the third kit ? 

I really don't want to say anything else at the moment, but I will say that the club are very aware now of the fanbase feeling 

[Wedontplayinblue]

Just now, phantom said:

I really don't want to say anything else at the moment, but I will say that the club are very aware now of the fanbase feeling 

When will what you know be public knowledge then?

[phantom]

3 minutes ago, Wedontplayinblue said:

When will what you know be public knowledge then?

That I can't tell you because that's down to Bristol City announcing - personally I think there should have already been an statement from the club 

[BasSavage88]

1 minute ago, phantom said:

That I can't tell you because that's down to Bristol City announcing - personally I think there should have already been an statement from the club 

I expect something like this from Jon Lansdown

 

 

 

[Wedontplayinblue]

8 minutes ago, phantom said:

That I can't tell you because that's down to Bristol City announcing - personally I think there should have already been an statement from the club 

On what part though?

The lack of away kit so far,

The splat Robin 

it being blue 

 

etc

[phantom]

3 minutes ago, Wedontplayinblue said:

On what part though?

The lack of away kit so far,

The splat Robin 

it being blue 

 

etc

All of what you highlighted above 

[Taz]

3 hours ago, Selred said:

Yes O’Neills has been fabulous…. Where is our away kit? Why our are collars too big? Why didn’t our socks match our shirts until the last game? 
 

Don't get me wrong I'm not sticking up for o'neills - it looks shit from top to bottom, but we do have a kit, as well as a change kit.

Hummell despite being the best kits we've had for ages, fell when it mattered most - delivering kits to the team, which in turn ended up (probably) being the explanation for poor stock levels in the shop last year- the squad using kits from the shop!

[SydneyCity]

4 hours ago, Ian M said:

Probably waiting until the day we sell Alex to bury the release given how well received the blue kit will be.

I don’t think it’s to bury it, I think it’s marketing related.

With all due respect to the other players, you want to shoot the advertising campaign with Alex Scott front and centre. If he’s sold the day after shooting, you need to go and reshoot it.

You also don’t want to focus on him, sell a tonne of shirts with Scott on the back as a result of the campaign, then have to deal with all those fans (justifiably) complaining that they spent all their hard earned cash on a shirt for a player that isn’t even at the club any more.

I’m not a huge fan of O’Neills as a brand, but to be fair to them, they have proved that they can turn kits around extremely quickly - albeit at the expense of quality. They do know what they’re doing and we can see with each iteration that the quality is improving. I’m increasingly thinking that the overall poor design/manufacturing decisions are being driven by the club. There’s no way that O’Neills would purposely release kits that damage their brand like this. If anything, I think they’re probably guilty of saying yes to many times to a “big” customer.

[Club and Country]

1 hour ago, phantom said:

All I will say is that I was part of a meeting with our CEO last Friday and know that the vast majority of what you have written is wrong 

Perhaps you should let us know how you disagree? 

Did you discuss the terrible new robin out of interest? 
ignore, just seen you've answered above 

Edited July 31, 2023 by Club and Country

[Lack of Action Man]

Fine with a blue away kit. The FA cup final kit was blue, though arguably the ideal time to launch a blue away kit would’ve been the 100th anniversary of our one and only final… but that would’ve been back in either 08/09 or 09/10 season so we’ve well and truly missed the boat on that one. 
 

Worth also mentioning the club ran a blue away kit as an April fool’s joke in recent times! 
 

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/bristol-city-reveal-brave-new-2707162

[REDOXO]

12 minutes ago, OddBallJim said:

Fine with a blue away kit. The FA cup final kit was blue, though arguably the ideal time to launch a blue away kit would’ve been the 100th anniversary of our one and only final… but that would’ve been back in either 08/09 or 09/10 season so we’ve well and truly missed the boat on that one. 
 

Worth also mentioning the club ran a blue away kit as an April fool’s joke in recent times! 
 

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/bristol-city-reveal-brave-new-2707162

You are quite right about our Cup Final appearance. 
 

IF it is blue, they need to hammer that home hard. And no semi serious Cup team selections. 

[W-S-M Seagull]

3 hours ago, Selred said:

Yes O’Neills has been fabulous…. Where is our away kit? Why our are collars too big? Why didn’t our socks match our shirts until the last game? 
 

Coventry fans will be asking

How come the kits arrived so late there wasn't enough time to put the sponsors on?

They'll also be asking why are no kits available to buy until about the 3rd game of the season. 

They'll be asking why they have no away kit when they need an away kit for Sunday! 

Can you imagine the uproar if that was here? Our fanbase would be having a collective meltdown. Imagine starting the season without a single fan being able to wear the new shirt(s)

I think O'Neills are getting a lot of unfair stick from our fans. They produced kits at very short notice for us where as usually there is a very long lead time. 

We're the collars and socks down to O'Neills or down to us? Considering their GAA stuff is top quality, I'm inclined to suggest the fault doesn't lay with them. 

[Selred]

2 minutes ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

I think O'Neills are getting a lot of unfair stick from our fans. They produced kits at very short notice for us where as usually there is a very long lead time. 

We're the collars and socks down to O'Neills or down to us? Considering their GAA stuff is top quality, I'm inclined to suggest the fault doesn't lay with them. 

How long is the lead time? They’ve had since Feb and the collars in pre season looked worse than ever. 

It’s their brand on the kit. If they weren’t happy then they shouldn’t of been making it. 

[ollywhyte]

Could it be the splat robin was also designed onto the new away shirts and after the backlash of our third kit we’ve now decided we want to stick with the normal badge?

Hence a prompt re-design, mass re-print and then promotional shoot etc before release. That’s the only thing I can think that will be holding a release up, otherwise it’s poor considering we’ve had two kits since February and it’s taken nearly 6 months to release just one additional?

[Ian M]

3 hours ago, phantom said:

Interesting people are still referring to a blue kit

I heard it was actually blue and white

[Ian M]

4 minutes ago, ollywhyte said:

Could it be the splat robin was also designed onto the new away shirts and after the backlash of our third kit we’ve now decided we want to stick with the normal badge?

Hence a prompt re-design, mass re-print and then promotional shoot etc before release. That’s the only thing I can think that will be holding a release up, otherwise it’s poor considering we’ve had two kits since February and it’s taken nearly 6 months to release just one additional?

Imagine if the away kit was white with a blue splat Robin woven into the design

[W-S-M Seagull]

7 minutes ago, Selred said:

How long is the lead time? They’ve had since Feb and the collars in pre season looked worse than ever. 

It’s their brand on the kit. If they weren’t happy then they shouldn’t of been making it. 

Isnt the lead time about a year or so? I dunno they look fine to me. 

Maybe it's just the design of the collar rather than the manufacturing? 

There is nothing wrong with the 3rd kits or GK kits. The quality seem perfectly fine. 

O'Neills are a relatively small family firm in Ireland. It would have been a big task for them to take us (and now the Bears) on at very short notice. 

Maybe the away kit is taking so long because they want to get it absolutely right? 

 

[SydneyCity]

Re: the collar, a quick glimpse back to last season shows it was huge then as well. It just wasn’t noticed.

The big collars seen in pre-season may simply have been old stock combined with “we’ve already got them”, “It’s only pre-season, it doesn’t matter what we wear” and a fan base looking for things to talk about.

The kids shirt posted earlier in this thread, the same. An old, rushed batch.

Ironically, I think the push to get the shirts out early to increase sales has led to poor quality, which in turn has likely led to reduced sales.

Splat robin is just a f@!king stupid decision by someone in the club and has amplified the general dissatisfaction amongst fans.

[James54De]

3 hours ago, phantom said:

All I will say is that I was part of a meeting with our CEO last Friday and know that the vast majority of what you have written is wrong 

Perhaps you should let us know how you disagree? 

Your posts have been pretty “look at me” tonight. If your claim on “10 mil upfront because of ffp” is to go by, can’t believe a lot of what you say. 

[Spike]

3 hours ago, Taz said:

Don't get me wrong I'm not sticking up for o'neills - it looks shit from top to bottom, but we do have a kit, as well as a change kit.

Hummell despite being the best kits we've had for ages, fell when it mattered most - delivering kits to the team, which in turn ended up (probably) being the explanation for poor stock levels in the shop last year- the squad using kits from the shop!

Not disagreeing, maybe I'm being a little pedantic but from my understanding, Hummel didn't fail, their British supplier did and whilst that isn't the best look Coventry, Everton and Kilmarnock found a solution. I think it'd be fair to say Hummel had really been delivering some of the best kits in the past 20 years and apparently the best we could do on short notice was get a shirt supplier who is better known for rugby jerseys. 
The club, in my personal opinion, failed to replace quality kits with quality kits and so it feels like a step backwards and whilst I give credit for O'Neills stepping in at short notice the fact that we've had two kits from them and both have had issues doesn't bode well for me and I'm looking forward to the day we get someone else.

I've bought a Bristol City shirt or jacket every season for the past 25 years, this is the first year where I'm yet to see something I want to spend my money on which is crazy when you think about it, fans willing to spend money and the club can't even supply something they'd like to buy.

With regards to a blue away kit, I've looked through our history and we've used it four times on goalkeeper kits and three times on an away kit (blue/green and yellow/blue x 2), I don't think blue has any place in our kits and the simple fact is if the fans are willing to buy black, white, purple, lime, yellow, gold, green, grey, orange etc then why would we use a colour that many associates with our rivals? There are so many great potential away kit colours they could have used, a traditional white, a usually very well-received black, hell, they even could have gone for something we've never had before but wasn't going to be associated with Rovers and it still would have got a better reception. To me that shows how out of touch the club is with what the fans want, they'd be far better off doing a poll on the main website of what the fans favourite away colour is or even browsing these forums they'd get a better idea.

I think with such a bad start with us O'Neills won't recover the fans favour and things will not sell well, eventually, we'll switch suppliers and you'll see some enthusiasm if it's a company that delivers good kits but until then it's just going to be a losing battle for the club.

[Lack of Action Man]

People forget that we’ve had so called “big names” supply us in the past.

Puma under GJ - generally quite middle of the road bland kits.
Adidas under DMc - catalogue template rubbish and never any stock. 

For me, some of the best kits we have had in recent times were the “in-house” Bristol Sport ones. Wouldn’t be against us going back to this sort of arrangement tbh.
 

People having a moan because they/their kid doesn’t want to be seen in an O’Neills kit/tracksuit. Can’t get any street cred unless you’re in the latest overpriced releases from JD sports? Jesus wept, talk about first world problems.

 

[soultrader]

11 hours ago, Wedontplayinblue said:

I’m still shocked people are not getting it, 

The away kit will be blue, they are releasing it as late as possible as people can finish complaining/moaning about the third kit, then release the blue away kit just close enough to the start of the season or just after. 
 

The people who run the club are not stupid, they know a lot of people won’t be happy. 

Unhappy people ?   On this forum?

Seems a little far fetched