Made In Dagenham, Now More Than Ever: The Ideal Sponsor For West Ham. HamburgHammer takes his mind off personal matters by thinking football shirts. West Ham are about to get new shirt sponsors. Will it be a local East London company gracing our players’ chests or another case of West Ham United Nations product or service ?
This time of year is always tricky for me and will remain so for the rest of my days. Today is the day my beloved brother passed away from cancer, four years ago to the day. The pain has been numbed to a degree by Father Time, but it is still there, every day that happens to arrive. For about a week around that date, my life freezes, I don’t feel like doing anything, going out to nightclubs or the cinema or even enjoying anything that usually brings a smile to my face. Which is tricky because three days later without fail it’s my birthday. So there was no disco dancing at the weekend for me. Maybe I will take my mate out for a buffet lunch at a local Chinese restaurant on my birthday, if I feel up to it. Or maybe a win against Wolves will succeed in perking me up, we shall see…
So, now for something completely different! Premier League clubs have agreed to ban betting companies as shirt sponsors from the 26/27 season in an effort to battle gambling addiction. This is going to affect plenty of PL clubs. I am often amazed to see yet another Asian gambling company never heard of or seen before making an appearance on the shirt of another team. As these companies can afford to sponsor a PL club in the first place surely means they all make a decent buck from their customers/addicts. But let’s not get further into that sad state of affairs at this junction. I would like to address the question of which product or service you might deem worthy or suitable to grace our shirt when the time to ditch Betway finally comes.
Now, I am still a hopeless football romantic. Hence from an early age I have always been interested in the various aspects of football shirts. Colours, design, shape of collar, the look of the sleeves, the placing of the club crest and last, but definitely not least, the sponsor. Every year I was eagerly awaiting the release of the massive and heavy Bundesliga Season preview mag from Kicker which was containing posters of every team in Bundesliga 1 and 2. Would the new shirts look great and would the sponsors on them this year be exciting in the main or rather boring ? For me football clubs always should pick sponsors that tie in with football culture and the everyday life of the average supporter. An overly simplistic view maybe, but I never liked the corporate identity of banks, insurance companies or ERP software taking centre stage on footie shirts. Boooooooring!
For me it had to be normal things even us kids could understand. Food, drink, cars, petrol companies if need be. In Germany the history of shirt sponsorship began in 1973 with one of the biggest success stories ever when Eintracht Braunschweig had the famous deer head of Jägermeister on their shirts. Jägermeister being the notorious herbal liqueur from Wolfenbüttel which has become a very popular party drink all around the world in recent years. Braunschweig’s bright yellow shirts became a hit among their fanbase and can still be found at Braunschweig home games to this day. This kickstarted a process where clubs would be associated for many years with their sponsors. When I was young, it was BP and SHARP for Hamburger SV, Jack Daniel’s bourbon or Böklunder sausages for St.Pauli. Dortmund even temporarily changed their crest and had a lion’s head on their chest when they were being sponsored by a Dutch tobacco company. Bayern Munich for years had the name of the truck manufacturer Magirus Deutz on their shirts. Not to forget FC Homburg with their sponsor London Rubber company which led to them having to briefly cover up their condom producing sponsor for a while when they had been issued with a ban for some unfathomable reason. Well, it was 1988 and people probably were only just beginning to learn about the positive effects that using condoms may have…
Football shirts can be a true work of art, but only if the entire thing stands up to scrutiny. If either colour, crest, shirt design, collar or sponsor don’t fit the club, rest assured that the majority of the fanbase will give that shirt the elbow. Everyone except the diehard fans who buy every offering from the club no matter what. Or if foolishly not buying that shirt for the birthday of a very determined 7-year old with a low frustration threshold would lead to a very avoidable and major family crisis. But let’s not digress any Further…
