Shirt sponsors, scourge of the modern game, corporate cocks adorning the proud colours of our beloved teams. Gone are the days of plain strips, now everything is branded up to the hilt and there’s no stopping it. So, let’s just take the piss out of some of the shitter ones, and there’ve been a bunch. Remember when Spurs’ shirts were made by Pony? Christ. Here’s a top 5.
Wolves – Doritos
This sponsorship was from a time when Wolves’ marketing director was looking for partners who were exactly as orange as the Wolves kit – Berocca, Del Monte and actual oranges were also considered, but cheesy nacho wannabes Doritos won out. Here’s the thing though: Wolves aren’t orange, so why do they play in orange, and why is the wolf on their crest orange? That’s a fox. We all know it’s a fox. We all know someone done fucked up way back when and confused foxes with wolves, but it’s too late now. Do the right thing guys, either play in grey or change your name to Foxohampton Wanderers.
Portsmouth – Ty
Some sponsorships go hand-in-hand – Newcastle Brown Ale at Newcastle, Walkers at Leicester, but this one doesn’t really fall into that category. Ty make beanie babies, and also, beanie buddies, slightly larger versions of the popular beanie babies. Apparently there’s a moose that’s valuable, and some of the bears too if you absolutely do not fucking touch them. Quite how this correlates to a south coast football club run by an illiterate crook in their first Prem season is beyond me. Tragic footnote to this is that someone convinced Benjani to be paid in Ty stock, and now he’s destitute.
Arsenal – SEGA / Dreamcast
Ah Dreamcast, the console that time forgot. Actually, the SEGA Saturn was the console that time forgot, even shitter than the Dreamcast, which literally nobody cared about from the minute it was launched. Dreamcast, for fuck sake – it sounds like how a naïve film PR would describe a straight-to-DVD Christmas family movie starring one of the Baldwin brothers. Embarrassing for us Gunners. We didn’t even think to have Sonic on the kit.
Fulham – Pizza Hut
Mad as hell this one. Not often you see food products, let alone restauraunt chains, stray into football marketing, but some genius at Pizza Hut clearly wanted to branch out into West London, clearly wanted to make a statement for their first ever season in the top flight. Good fucking luck, Fulham fans definitely dine at Pizza Express and they definitely get the Goats Cheese Caramelised Onion one, plus a carafe of moderately priced white wine. Irony here is that John Collins and Andy Melville took such flagrant advantage of the Pizza Hut Buffet during that season that all restaurants west of Victoria were rapidly downsized.
