Lawman3 wrote: ↑Tue Jan 19, 2021 11:29 am
don'tbuythesun wrote: ↑Tue Jan 19, 2021 8:38 am
I've been busy selling my loft contents in eBay whilst the debate has filled five pages. I think it's quite something that the fans get to vote for the shirt design and I feel an open vote may have been abused. Citeh and Palace looked quite fetching in a sash style shirt and I'm not sure the history/identity discussion works for me. There was a period where there's only one hooped shirt in fifteen years. Next season's is a slant on 1889-90 perhaps and whilst we have almost always had hoops in the last fifteen years we've predominantly had shirts without them.
Sadly once again this threads become toxic. If people aren't happy with our board then I suggest you either contact them directly (my dealings with any of them have been friendly and helpful) and/or step up to the plate and put yourself forward. Quarters anyone?!
Have we predominantly had shirts without hoops? If you go back through our history, it is clear that Darlington wore exclusively hoops for nearly half a century up to the mid fifties. If you started supporting Darlo in that time, it is fair to say that hoops were an intrinsic part of the club's identity. The next half century then saw a variation of shirt designs - often plain white, but also several appearances of hoops (the 3 hoops in the 60s/70s spring to mind). Since the Jack Hatfield hooped shirt appeared in 1989, Darlo's shirts have had a variety of designs (some good, some bad) with hoops being a recurring theme.
Hoops are interwoven into the identity of the club. But, of course, there is a limit, design-wise, to what can be done with a hooped jersey. Most football shirt designs these days leave me cold (probably an age thing - maybe I'm not the key demographic), so this isn't the hill I want to die on.
Talk about twisting facts to suite your wishes.
Or bluntly, what a load of bollocks.
I assume you have some knowledge not available to the rest of us mere mortals to say such?
First recorded hoops was in season 1912-13. (so it was 30 years after we were started before we wore hoops).
No record for the next 7 seasons, (thus 37 years without hoops to 1 with that we know of).
20-38 Hoops. (Whoopee. now 19 years hoops compared to 37 without.)
During the war years we wore plain white as the easiest to produce, but as I have no evidence to prove that other than I was told by my uncle who set me off following Darlo in 1951). . ... Still 37-19.
You may note, we are now well over the first 50 years of our existence and your idea of what is "clear" obviously needs some revising.
You then have runs from 1954 to 66 with no sign of hoops and after 5 seasons with the thin chest hoops we again went another 17 years before we hit the Conference winning hoops, (2 seasons), before yet another gap of 4 years before 1 with hoops. Thin hoops 1 season 97-8 then another 5 years no hoops.
The only time you could say we have "virtually always been hoops" is if you take it the club only started in 2004. Up to that point to say hoops were our "heritage" was, and is, simply not true.