The TFC Retro-Fit, Part 3 : The Kit

Yesterday, we took a look at the proposed old-school badge of a club that wasn't all that old-school to begin with.  We opted for one direction over another as the kit to pursue and went with the cold Soviet-style logo.  This should work.

So, with fellow kit and logo nerd @theyorkies1812, firmly behind this project, we decided to make sure this sucker has all of the things needed for this to, at least appear, to be something from a bygone era.

Red?  Check.

Cyrillic?  Check.

V-neck?  You bet.

Sponsor?  Da, comrade.

Old-school Adidas trefoil?  You know it.

Yeah, the BMO logo in Russian was @theyorkies1812's idea. Sweet touch. We figured putting a name in Cyrillic just nails it. The number font is from a font found from the 1974 world cup Adidas kit styles. I'd like to find a more 'blockier' Cyrillic font for the names, but this will do for display purposes.

Understanding that Adidas is creating new kits for Toronto this season, I don't have much faith in the 'testing' designs that some of the other sides in the league have had to endure (the garbage Seattle kits, Columbus away, Philadelphia). I am a fan of the current kit with the grey sleeves and red chest as they are excellent. Toronto has come far design-wise since the lame first seasons.

I think we may have found our new kits for next year, even if TFC/MLS/Adidas wouldn't agree.  We'll have to place the order soon once we decide which legend's name and number we want on the back.

Please leave your criticisms below. Blind hate to be ignored and ridiculed. Open to suggestions. Follow my inane banter on the twitterz @ignirtoq

The TFC Retro-Fit, Part 2 : The Badge

So our discussions of nerding out over the idea of a retro kit was on the basis of our love of past kits.  Not necessarily the most memorable ones based on hideousness or outright fame but rather the fondness of a bygone era of not-quite prima donnas and simplicity.

It was put forth that the design should be this simple. Like so...

Without the "Wrangler" on the front, but you get the idea.  Old-style Adidas, pinstripes, v-neck collar.

But first we need a crest.  The current TFC crest looked way too modern, or way too circa-2008.  We tend to believe that its look is dated but we don't exactly know how yet.  So we had two schools of thought : a 60's/70's style crest - either artistic like English crests of the era - or something minimalist from the Soviet school of thought.

This is the take on the 70's English style, something that would look good in the centre of a rosette.  Rope border, civic representation, spelling out of the full name, starting first with the city flag incorporated in 1972 and then adjusted to the colours to match the club.  The city crest would've taken too long so forgive me.  It was decided that we chose the year of incorporation and not their first season of 2007 as the date on the crest.

However, the one that I think turned out the best was the Soviet style.  The colours that TFC uses as secondary, the two shades of grey, make for a perfect cold-war pallet.  The first idea was to consider the names that adorned many clubs in that time (and plenty still do) : CSKA, Spartak, Torpedo, Dynamo, Lokomotiv.

Wanting desperately to revisit the Lokomotiv Toronto crest I did earlier in the year as a joke, I realized that deviating too far away from the name of the club would defeat the purpose of this re-imagining.  So we scrapped that idea and just went for Toronto FC.  In Cyrillic.

(yes, it's this rediculous)

Come back tomorrow for the final installment of The TFC Retro-Fit, Part 3 : The Kit.

The TFC Retro-Fit, Part 1 : The Idea

For the eight of you regulars who visit the site (the old six, please make the new two feel welcome), we try to convey that we are football nerds first, kit and crest nerds second.  And sometimes, it's the other way around (had anyone here actually HEARD of the Kansas City Comets before they came here?).

Recently, I have become engaged and part of the preliminary wedding planning talks has involved a heavy 'footy' theme.  Scarves, songs, colours, the whole bit (honey... is there room in the budget for a tifo?).  Part of that included customized soccer jerseys.  I began my research by looking into a few companies and decided that they only way to know what kind of quality we're getting is to order a few 'tests'.

The first test was to recreate a jersey of my first football love : my local beloved perpetual silver medallists, the Hamilton Steelers.  Below is a kit from 1986, when they won the national amateur championship.

After rebuilding the old logo into something modern and artistically balanced, I laid out the jersey and sent it off to the manufacturer.  The cost of this shirt from the manufacturer was $85, $30 of it was shipping.  So if we were to do more than one, the costs should come down I suspect.

Upon receipt of the kit, I showed @theyorkies1812 and his wheels started spinning : We should make a TFC retro kit!

The first thing we agreed on was that it wasn't or couldn't be the Blizzard because it's already been done.  Or Metros-Croatia.  Or City, or Falcons or any of the old ECPSL clubs.  It had to be a re-imagining.  Obviously, if anyone wanted a true 'TFC retro kit' and you looked around discount warehouses, you'd find the first kit issued in 2007. But we were thinking more of a period piece.  A bygone era.

Pre-1960s wouldn't work for what we had in mind.  Everything was simple.  Designs didn't exist, but rather "you wore this because this is what the manufacturer made" types of shirts...

Check back tomorrow where we show the results of our retro-inspired TFC crests in The TFC Retro-Fit, Part 2.