Although Saints supporters were not too disappointed that the drab grey away kit will not be used at Wembley on Sunday many were left feeling that the club have missed a chance here !
Although most Saints fans would concur that the white 3rd strip as worn at Bournemouth is a better option for our change kit at Wembley than the grey second strip, it still leaves the feeling that the club has missed a trick here.
Firstly although the club has insisted that by staying with the club's traditional colours it allows the fans to identify themselves with the team, it has missed the point that Manchester United also wear red and white and given that there will probably be more of them at Wembley we really needed something to make us stand out in the crowd.
That was what happened at our last three major cup final appearances, the yellow colour was taken up not only in 1976 and 1979 at the old Wembley but in 2003 at Cardiff, given that our opponents on all three of those occasions also had red & white as their primary club colour, it gave our fans the chance to create that block of colour in the ground that stood out and meant our support was not just vocal but visual.
This has differentiated different generations of Saints supporters in major finals three generations apart, each took it and made it stand out.
Given that Spurs third kit is Old Gold, actually our traditional away colour, it is not like Under Armour don't have it in stock so to speak.
But if yellow was not to be an option then why did we not produce a white 3rd kit with the sash on it, a re issue of our 125th anniversary kit would have gone down very well with the supporters, not only would it tick all the boxes in terms of keeping our traditional colour scheme, not to mention our original strip thus giving it true historical significance but it would also have allowed the supporters to dig out their shirts from 6/7 years ago to once again wear with pride, this time at Wembley.
Indeed that would have been a major plus point, I really can't think of a final in recent years where the fans of a team have not actually have been able to purchase and wear the cup final shirts on the day itself, a sash kit would have sold like hot cakes.
Of course some would say that the design of the kit is inconsequential, that it is about the team playing in it's traditional colours, I am not one of them, if we want to create ourselves as a major football club then it is more than just about colour, it is about iconic kits, think any big club and you will bring to mind an iconic kit, would Liverpool or Manchester United play in a striped design would Celtic contemplate playing in a plain green first kit, I could go on but the answer is no !
I would have liked Saints to have run out at Wembley in a kit that stood out, made the watching millions on TV take notice either of the colour when it would have reminded them of our other finals or by the fact that the sash would have reminded the World what our roots and traditions are, as good as it was in 2010/11, as we were in League One our kit passed by without too much notice to the armchair TV millions, now we had the chance to show them !