The Good, The Bad, The WTF

I'll 'fess up. Before finding this shirt, I had no reason to think that Carlisle United might be a goldmine for future posts. Then I went to some of my other bad shirt haunts and, let me tell you, they have some horrors out there. For about 10 years, they could do nothing right. This week's shirt falls smack-dab in the middle of that time.


I think the thing that irks me most about this shirt is not the color scheme, though that is a consideration, but the sponsor. This faux-3D lettering is just too much for a shirt that has a lot going on already. As best as I can tell from the other shirts from the era, the eddie STOBART sponsorship did not use this gimmick, so why use it here?

The reason, if I had to guess, is because the striping begs for it. When there is that much going on with just the colors of the shirt, the sponsor probably felt the need to try to stand out a little more. Hence the use of the trick that I was very fond of in P6 to get my posters to POP in class.

Why so many colors anyway? The Carlisle home shirt is usually mostly blue, with some white and red accents thrown in. Perhaps it's down to being the most lonely club in the league. If my memory of geography and teams serves (and by no means do I guarantee it does), Carlisle is the most isolated club in the top four tiers of British football. I don't know why that would make the club choose such busy shirts, but it's what I have in the time frame allotted to me.

So, anyway, if you are a budding Trustifarian and what to show off your love of both Jah and footy, and can fit into a '90s English Small shirt, go bid on the ebays. Three quid plus shipping is not a bad price to pay for letting people know that even though your mom will not let you grow dreadlocks yet, you will still smoke pot with them and would really like to move to Asheville in the future.