Above are the uniforms the new FC Tampa Bay Rowdies will be wearing when they begin play in the USSF Division 2 Pro Soccer League in April (photos courtesy TBO’s Rowdies blog). I was pleased to see how close the home whites are to the originals (which can’t be beat), and that the green and gold hoop socks are back. The roads are a bit stripey for me, but that’s a trifle.

You’ll note these don’t say “Rowdies” anywhere. As part of the ongoing legal action by a company in Dallas that has claim to the wordmark and to merchandise bearing the name “Tampa Bay Rowdies,” you’ll see FC Tampa Bay on things sold by the club (eventually, I guess…hopefully they’ll have things to sell soon), but not Rowdies.

EDIT: Here’s a clearer look at the actual designs:

The yellow “thing” on the back of the white jersey has got to go. Completely unnecessary and dumb. And it’s too small to tell, but I presume that’s the badge again at the bottom of the numbers on the backs of the shirts. That’s a device (I think the Premier League started it several years ago, and it was novel then) that I think has been done to death and I think it needs to go away.

Other than that (and the fact that the shirts themselves appear to be fairly low-quality), they didn’t do a bad job at all on these. The whites (except for the ugly yellow thing) are a nice update of a classic look. I’ll get used to the other one (and probably won’t see it much anyway).

ANOTHER EDIT: The team’s release on the unveiling calls the green-and-gold hoop socks “infamous.”

in·fa·mous
/ˈɪnfəməs/
–adjective
1. having an extremely bad reputation: an infamous city.
2. deserving of or causing an evil reputation; shamefully malign; detestable: an infamous deed.

“Infamous” does not have a positive connotation. Those socks are famous, not infamous.

Jesucristo, do I have to do everything around here?

Tags: pointing out the inadequacies of others, Rowdies, soccer, uniforms

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 24th, 2010 at 8:52 am and is filed under soccer, uniforms. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.