From the Socceroos' 'vomit' shirt from the early 90s to Spain's awful strip from 2016, we cannot get enough of the wild and wacky soccer kits that have been trotted out across the globe over the years.
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So with the new, beefed-up Western Premier League season kicking off this weekend, we're obviously channeling our inner fashion police to analyse all the clubs' 2021 kits.
Early tip - there's nothing outlandish and we're really, really disappointed by that.
But we can see the method in that though because, in our opinion, the strength of any club's kit game is intrinsically linked to their on-field performance... so looking outside the box could easily fail, spectacularly.
Just look at Liverpool, they rocked superb kits in 2019-20 and won everything.
Now they've adopted a hideous, aquamarine strip on the road, only to be languishing midway down the English Premier League table and facing elimination from the Champions League next week as well.
Side note, we can't enough of the fact the WPL is not just back but is building too, so let it be known we're stoked to see more clubs commit and bring back a genuine, region-wide league.
That doesn't mean we like all their kits though.
We're only rating home kits here as well, but will mention a few away strips, and will use scales based on our favourite Socceroos of all-time. Here we go.
MACQUARIE UNITED
A-League meets the WPL here.
A slight adaptation of Sydney FC's kit circa 2018-19, the Dubbo outfit has maintained the same look they had last season, which is a bit of theme throughout the league.
It's hard to knock a simple sky blue number like this, which is reminiscent of Manchester City's threads prior to this season too, and it's offset well with navy shorts.
Don't worry though, you'll soon see we're very capable of savaging simple sky blue kits, just not this one, it's solid without being outstanding.
- RATING: 7 Mark Bosnichs out of 10
ORANA SPURS
Crystal Palace-y, but not in the way we'd hope.
Compared to the adequate south London outfit, Orana's clobber isn't as clean, and the way the red vertical stripes taper off looks like someone's put the brush down two-thirds of the way through a paint job.
For another comparison, Google the Newcastle Jets' kit from the 2019-20 summer and you'll get a look at how the red and blue vertical stripes are done very well.
Even better is the Jets' mainly white away kit from that season, more of that please.
- RATING: 4 Mile Jedinaks out of 10
PARKES COBRAS
White Goodman must be at the helm here, surely?
Looking at these deep purple numbers, we're left wondering if shoulder pads and headbands will be added in time for the GloboGym Purple Cobras' 2021 campaign. No, Parkes... not GloboGym.
They're different, we'll give Parkes that, because this kind of purple isn't a colour you see all that often. It's hard not immediately think of Grimace on first look though.
We've got word the colours will switch on the road to be predominantly black and even though we spruiked for outlandish strips earlier, we do love an all black outfit.
- RATING: 3 Mark Vidukas out of 10
PANORAMA FC
Any team named the Goats gets a big tick from us, even if that realistically has nothing to do with their kit.
If we were rating logos Panorama would be right at the top, even if it is just essentially Fulham's shield with a little goat put on top. The goat rules though.
Considering the obvious similarities to Fulham, we'd have loved to see the Goats adopt a predominantly black and white strip but they probably do need to differentiate themselves, and there's not a lot to dislike about this one.
Simple and clean-cut, hopefully they'll continue rocking an entirely black strip for away games or colour clashes. Go Goats.
- RATING: 7.5 Stan Lazaridis' out of 10
BARNSTONEWORTH UNITED
As always, big Sunderland vibes from Barnies.
Of course, Barnies' colours aren't restricted to the Orange outfit, the Barnstoneworth brand is far-reaching and so are the red and white vertical stripes.
For good reason too, from a purely aesthetic point of view they work, and they're hardly uncommon in world soccer either, even serial biter Luis Suarez looks pretty good in Atletico Madrid's similar threads.
We'd take points off if we were also including alternate kits here because we can't get around the green Barnies wear when colours clash, but we don't even know if they're doing that again this year.
Who knows, maybe they'll trot out something completely brown in that case... we could get around that purely for the meme value.
- RATING: 8 Brett Emertons out of 10
ORANGE WARATAHS
Here's that other simple, sky blue outfit we mentioned earlier... and there's too much of it.
'Tahs have always worn sky blue so obviously they're not going to stray too far from that, but looking at this strip we can't stop thinking about the Cookie Monster, it's that blue.
Sure, there's a few white shoulder stripes and we're intrigued to see if they'll wear something different against Macquarie, but we're docking points for a lack of variation here.
We were really hoping for an adaptation of Manchester City's kit here and if 'Tahs adopted it, we're certain they'd have won because it is 100 per cent the reason the Citizens have so emphatically dominated the EPL this season.
- RATING: 2 Zeljko Kalacs out of 10
LITHGOW WORKMEN'S
We like harlequin or checkerboard tops, but this isn't quite either.
The faded sections through the vertical stripes almost give it that checkerboard feel without actually completely pulling it off, so we're not sure where we stand on this one.
There is a lot of shades of red in this league, isn't there?
We can't seem to figure out whether we like this one or not, but we don't really get around faded elements on any strip in any sport... so we've decided this one is slightly below a pass.
- RATING: 4.5 Lucas Neills out of 10
MUDGEE GULGONG WOLVES
If we were able to buy any of the kits on offer in this year's Western Premier League, it'd be this one, the newcomers have nailed it in their first season back in the competition.
We would love to have seen them completely take after their EPL counterparts because Wolves, simply, have the best kits in Europe's top league by a mile, but this Wellington Phoenix-ish strip is still very nice.
We love that it's being worn by a side entering the league this year too, why not come in and show the heavyweights how it's done? Great stuff.
- RATING: 9 Harry Kewells out of 10
DUBBO BULLS
No doubt soccer players are as superstitious as any athletes - left sock first, then left boot, go to the toilet, get strapped, practice falling over in the box... you get the picture.
That diving slight's not directed at the Bulls, or any side, by the way, we just think it's funny stirring people up by playing on that stereotype that players care more about playing for fouls than the actual game.
With superstition in mind, you could never blame the reigning champions for carrying over their league-winning strip from 2020 and this is far from offensive.
It feels a touch run-of-the-mill, but it's much better than the entirely-tangerine clobber the Bulls used to kick around in and we like the slight difference in the vertical stripe theme, so we're still pretty happy with it.
You'd just love to see the Bulls running out in a remake of Juventus' tie-dye style alternative strip though, even if for no other reason than shock value.
- RATING: 6.5 John Aloisis out of 10
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