Me and my brother were talking about this the other day. The standard of the club's shirts has dramatically worsened in recent times. The designs are boring and unoriginal and the quality is extremely poor (sponsors cracking/coming off after after a handful of washes). The club do listen to fans regarding colour schemes but when they do, they get it all wrong. The recent tangerine kit was clearly a half-assed effort - we asked for tangerine, they brought us an eye-stinging fluorescent orange that looked more at home on the hard shoulder of the M60.
Personally, I haven't bought a shirt since the Sparta blue back in the early '00s. My brother's stupid enough to buy nearly all new shirts and, time after time, he's massively disappointed. After noticing more than noticeable damage to his shirt after only a few days, he sent an email of complaint to Alan Hardy who, in fairness, offered him a replacement. My brother felt so embarrassed for the club that he turned the offer down. There's no way these these replica shirts are worth FORTY English pounds. I wear my dad's old red Umbro away shirt from the late 80's and that's lasted longer than any of my brother's recently purchased replicas.
Why can't we have kit designed by a well known, respectable, tried-and-test, good quality, professional manufacturer? It'd do wonders for the club's shoddy image and would, I'm convinced, increase all club shop sales. I'd definitely buy a replica shirt and I'd probably throw in a pair of tracksuit bottoms and a hoody. Why would I wanna walk around Oldham town centre in a pair of cheap, tacky, nylon Carbrini tracksuit bottoms? The town centre's chavvy enough as it is.
Stick to basics; plain royal blue home shirt, red or tangerine away kit by a decent manufacturer. Sales/image will increase no-end. Doesn't take a genius to work out.