- Aug 15, 2005
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Yeah Chris Sutton’s rant about it was actually quite on the money. He was basically more annoyed at the pointlessness of it all than the change itself. And I think that’s where I land. Why mess with it? Surely nobody thought, “Yeah everyone is going to love this obscure change to an age-old symbol of patriotism on a national shirt which nobody will understand so we’re going to half-explain it with marketing waffle about unity and inspiration - those things that a nation’s flag when left completely unaltered are usually used to conjure”.Am I missing what this change is meant to represent? Doesn't really 'signal' anything to me beyond the designer thought that a red cross looked a bit boring.
I’m baffled by it. The possibly insulting element is that I cannot imagine Nike would do this with most other countries’ national flags (which lends itself to the point others made about this being a further erosion of St George’s Cross as a positive symbol of national identity) but I’m sure it’s not unprecedented. But why pick the fight? And why did the FA not look at this and, at the very least, think ‘ehhh - prob best to leave the cross as it is. Might upset people to change it’.
As Chris Sutton said yesterday, it’s all bollocks.