Hmmm.

I’ve been very complimentary about both the home and away kits for 2024/25, because they both hit the spot. The home shirt is the epitome of a good Tigers primary look and the away shirt is an instant classic, not a term I use lightly at all. But this? Well it’s not for me.

Collar aside, I think it looks a bit tacky, like a DHGate counterfeit based on a child’s drawing of what a Hull City shirt should be, and the logic behind another all-amber kit after having one last season eludes me.

Another striped home kit? Of course, that’s our default look, but going back to the all-amber well again so soon, that baffles me a bit.

I figured the third was going to be Khaki green, that would make sense of the training-wear favoured by the coaching staff which I think is lovely (I keep eyeing up a Khaki hoodie and a rain-jacket on the club shop site) but seeing this is the third makes that colour-way choice seem bizarre*. A great shame because that shade of green and amber works in a way I would never have believed until I saw it, and Tim Walter styles that gear out.

*I accept that we’ve done this before, in 2020/21 some of the training-wear was ‘Spectra green and ice white’, but I prefer alternate training-wear to tie in with one of the kits in the set.

You could have released amber shorts really intended for use with the home shirt when away (as we did with the wine third shirt from 2021/22) and worn the simple black home shorts with a Khaki green shirt, visually linked to those black shorts by a plain black polo collar and amber Kappa ‘Omini’ logos.

Maybe interchangeability is the reason for this choice, though last season we didn’t mash-up once, because from a retail sales point of view I don’t think many people who own the amber 2023/24 change shirt (which seems quite popular, there were many on display against Bristol City on opening day) would feel the need to buy a replacement amber shirt.

There will be some who love it for the tonal tiger-stripe print, it will appeal to kids no doubt, and to some people who go a bit overboard with our nickname, but beyond that I don’t think you’re hitting the same demographic that was queueing outside of Tiger Leisure two days running to get an away shirt.

The Tigers is a great nickname, the best in football I’d argue (although Montrose being the ‘Gable-Endies does amuse), but it is just a nickname after all, and we’re in danger of being, immature, in our approach to it if we keep adding it to kits and leisurewear (and the warm up tees have embossed, tonal tiger-stripe patterns on the sleeves already).

With an animal print on the third shirts too, I think we’re heading down a path that’s gimmicky, twee and a bit naff. You can get away with a tiger print home shirt once a generation I think, and it’s part of our visual heritage now so we very much should, but more than that and you’re pushing it.

There are some examples of other clubs with kits using animal print elements, sure. Juventus had a third shirt in 2016/17 with a zebra print on the shoulders, Internazionale swapped solid black and blue stripes for a snakeskin effect in 2021/22, Wolves have put a wolf graphic on their away shirt this season, but these designs tend to be the exception rather than the rule, occasional oddities not the default style. We need to avoid throwing a tiger print on everything bECAuSE tIGeRZ!

For a second time in a row we’ve put a tonal print on an amber shirt, last year we had ‘UP THE TIGERS’ repeated in a darker amber to create the impression of stripes from a distance, but having already darkened the amber to a Pantone termed ‘Apricot’, we then had an even darker amber for the tonal print. At what point is tonal amber not amber at all?

I’m a little surprised at myself not being more forgiving since there is a polo collar, but the away shirts’ collar has slaked my thirst and it does it so much more stylishly. A plain black collar would have worked on a Khaki green shirt (I think I’m mourning this shirt which might never have existed even as a CAD file let alone a sample!) but here it looks a bit sad on another amber change shirt.

You know where else that plain black polo collar would have worked better? On the home shirt. A traditional turn-over collar on a primary shirt referencing our 120 years of existence, that’s perhaps is the only way the 2024/25 home could be improved upon.

Back to the third though, and I’m not feeling it, others might, and hey not everything has to be for me, I’m just one demographic in a fanbase with several.

I’ll stick to the home and the away, ta, those I very much love.