SWINDON TOWN HOME 2009-11

FFT's football shirt buff revisits the age of the asymmetric by picking out a pair of Robins tops with a rather familiar sponsor...

- Words Phil Delves

There's a simple pleasure in seeing a football shirt and immediately recognising the logo of the sponsor. A car company, a beer brand, even the title of a film - the superiority of these symbols cannot be overstated, when compared with the mark of a faceless gambling site whose social media profiles were created days prior to the official announcement.

We play an interesting sort of brand association when it comes to football kits. If we're familiar with the sponsor, our feelings towards the design may subconsciously improve, almost as if the collaboration is a kind of endorsement from a source that we trust. In the early days of sponsorship, local businesses were a common occurrence on kits, with even teams at the highest level of the game carrying the name of firms who'd otherwise never expect to receive such coverage. Though these small-scale partnerships were phased out as the years rolled by, there were countless quality sponsors to be savoured up and down the divisions where a company you knew and loved had dipped their toe into the sport. Swindon Town benefited from such a relationship between 2008 and 2011.