Premier League champions Manchester Metropolis have unveiled their new away package for the 2024-25 season and we will say past all doubt that it’s nailed on to turn into an immediate fan favorite.
Whereas it might seem like a fluorescent assault on the eyes to the informal onlooker, those that know will know that the jersey is sort of a stitch-for-stitch remake of the one they wore on the street through the 1998-99 season.
Again then, in fact, Metropolis weren’t the all-conquering, Pep Guardiola-coached, Abu Dhabi-bankrolled behemoth that we all know in the present day. Certainly, 25 years in the past they had been toiling within the third tier of English soccer whereas their native rivals, Manchester United, had dominated the last decade and ended it by profitable the Premier League-FA Cup–Champions League treble.
With ultra-bright yellow and navy blue stripes, the shirt was initially thought of to be one thing of an unpleasant duckling again then. However that did not stop it from attaining cult standing among the many Metropolis trustworthy and the unique can nonetheless frequently be seen across the Etihad terraces on matchdays 1 / 4 of a century on.
The 2024-25 model by Puma hasn’t been toned down within the slightest and the full of life color mixture remains to be as jarring as ever. Even the skinny sky blue borders between the stripes are interval right.
The 1998-99 marketing campaign is fondly remembered by Metropolis followers for one legendary match, the frenetic finale to the Second Division playoff ultimate at Wembley through which their aspect fell 2-0 down with 89 minutes performed and but nonetheless someway secured promotion.
Gillingham seemed to be getting ready to reaching the First Division (now referred to as the Championship) once they scored their second purpose within the ultimate minute of regulation time, just for Metropolis to surge again with targets from Kevin Horlock and Paul Dickov, who equalised within the ninety fifth minute to ship the tie to additional time and your entire stadium in meltdown.
Metropolis, who had spent the season within the English third tier for the primary time of their historical past, then earned themselves an immediate return to the First Division once they received a tense penalty shootout 3-1 due to an important, decisive save from goalkeeper Nicky Weaver.
Who would have thought that, a technology later, Metropolis would make English soccer historical past by changing into the primary group to win 4 consecutive league titles, in addition to profitable a treble of their very own?
As a salute to Metropolis’s exploits on that fateful day, the membership even had Wembley hero Dickov mannequin the 2024-25 rework of the neon and navy package he and his cohorts wore as they wrote their names into membership folklore.
It is also not the primary time that Metropolis have returned to those explicit colors, having marked the twentieth anniversary of their Wembley traditional by as soon as once more pairing fluorescent yellow stripes with navy on their 2018-19 away shirt.
However in relation to honouring some of the pivotal moments in your membership’s historical past, Metropolis could be forgiven for returning to it as soon as once more.
