Football strips/tradition

In a debate about the Motherwell hoop I was alerted to the linked website. For football anoraks it's quite interesting.

In my lifetime Motherwell FC my fitba team have more often than not worn an amber top with a claret band, claret shorts and amber socks. Once upon a time from about 1928 to 1969 it was a amber top with a claret hoop, not a band across the front a full on hoop. That is a fair old run and it's not unreasonable to suggest that makes it a traditional top.

Seemingly in 1970 it was only dropped to save a bit of money as it was expensive to repair the hoops after much use. Sounds a bit tightfisted to me and a poor reason to abandon the now traditional top. However with something like 40 years before and 37 years since without(2 seasons in the 90's aside, so far unclear on some of the 70's kits if they were bands or full hoops) the hoop I find it hard to say that it is the only design we should have any truck with.

Basically accused of having no respect for traditions by not endorsing the hoop as the only way to go, well tradition is just something people do for a long period of time, it isn't necesarily intrinsicaly good or bad. Personally I quite like the hooped design but it's not worth getting all fussed about and after looking at other teams kits throughout the ages there are very very few temas that have maintained a consistent design over the existence of their club. Given the financial and commerical decisions that are prevalent in football now keeping to such uniform style seems highly unlikely. We don't have the luxury of multitudes of sheep like fans willing to buy the same design of kit season in season out. Not that that seems to me like a great reason either but as a small club if changing the design encourages more sales then it's hard to argue with.

I do like our claret and amber colours but I just can't get worked up about the exact design so long as it's not hacket. It's far more annoying so called purists insisting that one basic design is what we're all about and stand for. It's only a kit and we only changed so we didn't have to have to change our kit for games so often as loads of other teams wore blue like did for the better part of the first 30 years of our existence.