The design for Manchester United’s 2013/2014 change strip has been leaked, and you can view it here. I love United, but I must say that this is an ugly, ugly shirt. The blue is fine, as this has been a traditional color for United change strips and they wore it against Benfica at Wembley when they won their first European Cup in 1968, but the lumberjack flannel shirt pattern is atrocious. The black also clashes with the blue because they are both darker colors–almost any other color (yellow might be decent) would be better than the black even though black is the club’s secondary color. I would much prefer a simple blue shirt with the same design as their primary red ones. It would also be neat to have a green and yellow change strip as an homage to the club’s original colors. They used this color scheme one year in the mid-1990s and I have thought about purchasing one of these shirts used, but the design is marred by the ’90s garishness that was all too common in the footballing world.
Manchester United’s 2013/2014 Change Strip
Published by danielshankcruz
I grew up in New York City and lived in Lancaster, Pennsylvania; Goshen, Indiana; DeKalb, Illinois; and Salt Lake City, Utah before coming to Utica, New York. My mother’s family is Swiss-German Mennonite (i.e., it’s an ethnicity, not necessarily a theological persuasion) and my father’s family is Puerto Rican. I have a Ph.D. in English and currently teach at Utica College. I have also taught at Northern Illinois University and Westminster College in Salt Lake City. My teaching and scholarship are motivated by a passion for social justice, which is why my research focuses on the literature of oppressed groups, especially LGBT persons and people of color. While I primarily read and write about fiction, I am also a devoted reader of poetry because, as William Carlos Williams writes, “It is difficult / to get the news from poems / yet [people] die miserably every day / for lack / of what is found there.” Thinkers who influence me include Marina Abramovic, Kathy Acker, Di Brandt, Ana Castillo, Samuel R. Delany, Percival Everett, Essex Hemphill, Jane Jacobs, Walt Whitman, and the New York School of poets. I am also fond of queer Mennonite writers such as Stephen Beachy, Jan Guenther Braun, Lynnette Dueck/D’anna, and Casey Plett. In my free time I’m either reading, writing the occasional poem, playing board games (especially Scrabble, backgammon, and chess), watching sports (Let’s Go, Mets!), or cooking (curries, stews, roasts…). View more posts
