The Good, The Bad, The WTF

Hednesford Town are a small club playing in the seventh tier of English football. Hednesford itself is located slightly north east of Birmingham. Just so you don't go mispronouncing it when you tell you friends about this amazing shirt later, Ignore the D and prononuce it as "Hens-ford". Alright, let's move on.

HTFC's heyday came at the end of the 1990s, at least in league. In the 1995-96 season, the team finished third in the old Conference. But since this was in the days before promotion playoffs, they had no shot to make League status. This week's shirt is the change shirt from that very year. One can only wonder how much better a shirt would have come out if they had made the jump, because this one is pretty awesome as it is.


Normally, the club wears boring, staid black and white. It matches their boring, staid black and white badge. I guess they use the away shirts to inject a little color and fun into their look. I like the yellow. It's not the neon look of recent Arsenal efforts, or even Barcelona's yellow-green efforts. This is bright and eye-catching without being a pain to the viewer. In color choice, I give it the ü75 seal of approval.

What I don't go for is all the extra bits in the middle. The sponsor is fine, if a bit highly placed, but that wide navy belt held together by the biggest Hednesford Town belt buckle anyone has ever seen must go. You have a badge already on the shirt. You don't need another reminder of which club you are playing for positioned seven inches away. It's a wonder that Errea didn't also sublimate the team name into the shirt itself.

Of course, Errea could not do so because (as you may be able to see if you click the picture) Errea sublimated its own logo on the shirt. Stay classy 1995. Did every single mid-90s shirt do this? I am glad that era is over.

One other thing about that gut buckle. Was it entirely necessary to use the premade Eurosport Juventus knockoff as the print? I guess the club did not want to spend the time coming up with their own look, and just decided to let the English equivalent of Eurosport's design staff do the work for them. Really, they should have tried a little harder if they were going to go that route.