Hats off to Widnes by the way, their magic shirt is a brilliant idea- though it pains me to say it!

matty russell looks pleased, he must have got the short straw, deep down inside he is crying and begging for the photo session to end, i think he is saying get this effing rubiks cube off me now

Agreed G O
Great idea.

Yes, The Widnesian Marketing Department must have had a sharp intake of the good chemicals on that day!

Has it said anywhere how much this shirt is? If you want to wear replica gear to support the team then that's one thing, but to splash out on a new shirt just because the team are going to warm up in it is bonkers.

Yeah it's madness, theres another 3 if the article is to be believed on the way.

If this is somehow connected to our new Chief Ex and his strategy I would say he hasn't exactly gone about things in a manner I would have hoped he would.....

...and if it wasn't him I'm also concerned that he isn't involved enough with our commercial merchandising to allow this....

A classic catch 22 here I'm afraid to say.

That's not a Catch 22 situation at all, never mind a classic one.

I would imagine this has been in the pipeline for a while and the new Chief Exec was not involved, but he may have been. However, you don't want the Chief Exec micromanaging everything.

I don't see why people are getting so wound up about it. It's only 100 shirts they need to sell. 100 people will probably like it. So, they'll sell. Not everything in marketing/merchandising comes off though and on such a small run it's not going to break the bank if it doesn't sell.

Why do people moan "boo hoo i can only afford one top a year"

Fine only buy one then, i have this years home and the special ed St George top.

If they brought out one a match i'd just pick what i liked and buy it, I wouldn't go in the shop and buy one of everything.

Why should the club limit itself just because not everyone can afford to buy everything?

I think the miscommunication of whether this top was a training top or a playing top didn't help. I imagine that people who buy replicas do so thinking that it is the shirt the players will be playing that season and if it's ever changed, they feel a bit cheated.

If they had mentioned from the get-go that it was a limited edition training top, no one would have bothered. The club could have a thousand training tops per season and if they sell, they sell and if not they'll be discounted at the end of the season and the club might end up a bit out of pocket.

I could see it costing £10,000 if no one bought any of these four tops as short runs of clothing will cost more. But that's not going to happen and they would need to sell just over half to break even.

Personally, i'd quite like one of them horrible looking trainign tops that they're NOT selling.

Wigan have their version as well, not so keen on that.

I think another reason people get so angry about this; whether they would buy the top or not, is that they see it as the club asking the fans yet again to put the funds in the club. Even if you have no interest in purchasing, people think, I'm putting in enough here, stop asking.

You can't blame the club too much though as there's only limited ways in which a RL club can generate money, so fans are expected to help as much as they can.

I've just been on the Wigan site to look for their top you mention and notice that they sell an Academy top which is different to the 1st team kit. Quick, as any one got Roger 'Don' Drapers number?