Junior Reporter competition winner Rod Howlett brings us his first Junior Magpies blog entry...
Another season dawns and with it, as always, a new kit. Over the years there have been some classic kits and a few shockers too.
For my first blog, I went along to the revamped Meadow Lane Sports Bar to our 2010/11 Kit Launch, and also to pick up my own new shirt.
One of my personal favourites was the home kit of 2005/06, which, although not the best season on the pitch (the Magpies stumbling to 21st, narrowly avoiding relegation), was top-notch kit.
Similar to that of the 1890 - 1900 kit, it had three stripes on the front. The improving difference for me was the all white sleeves; the stripes on the front only, with piping on other areas, gave it that minimalism more familiar in the modern football shirt. It also happened to be the first time for 72 years that white shorts had been seen on the home team at Meadow Lane...
I was a fan of that kit. Sadly though, it only appeared once and nothing similar has quite been recaptured. It isn't that surprising really. It was a season of maybes, and we never really got going, Mark Stallard had left and the goals had dried up.
The new kit for this season, pleasingly for me, has the familiar three stripes on the front, and the red Nike swoosh is a good contrast to the legendary black and white stripes. Forget Forest - reclaim the red!
In recent years the kit makers have rarely been brave enough - or stupid enough - to change the evenly matched black and white. For example, 2001/02 saw bigger stripes of black, in contrast to the narrower pipes of white - not traditional.
Generally though, we've been lucky with our kits. There are always exceptions, of course, and the keepers' kit for 1996 was our exception. In an era full of shockingly fluorescent, colourful or disastrous mixes for keepers, from Peter Schmeichel to David Seaman, the keepers had to wear some embarrassing jerseys. Mike Pollitt was on the receiving end of our kit, a Jackson Pollock special, containing purple, green, black and pink, in a horrific mix - which in '96 was the height of fashion.
In general, from 1890 to 2010, our shirts have had relatively few changes, though why did the stripes become horizontal in the Second World War? We've stayed away from the bad shirts and this season is no exception. I'm sure the fans will warm very nicely to the new kit, on which Nike has done a great job. There are, however, some dubious dots on the keepers' sleeves...
