Studs Up

So Nike invited me to the launch of the US home kit launch at the New York Niketown. Hot on the heels of the rather insane Nike Innovation event in London a couple of months ago, this was basically the US-based follow up and I was excited to see what they had planned.

The World Cup is one of the few times that America genuinely gets in a huff about football so it was great to see the Niketown themed top to bottom with football imagery, starting with a massive Clint Dempsey facade overlooking midtown Manhattan. Quite frankly, it looked insanely cool.





I’ve been to the NYC Nike Town a number of times and the football stuff is normally up on the 3rd floor or something, requiring a bit of a wander to get to the good stuff. So it was excellent to see that not only is football now the first thing you see when you walk in, but when I arrived they were in the process of building a set complete with wooden lockers and astroturf right in the middle of the main floor. The plan is to keep it there at least leading up to the World Cup, if not throughout the tournament.








The new US men’s home kit draws from the kit worn by the 1950 US team that beat England 1-0. With US playing England in SA they decided to use that design to spice things up even further. This was the second time I’d heard the background on the shirt from Nike Creative Director Phil Dickinson (once in London then again on Thursday) and each time he made sure to note the awkwardness of having to design a shirt almost explicitly to antagonise the English, despite being English himself. I can only imagine it getting worse if he’s a City or Spurs supporter and having to do the United and Arsenal kits. The temptation to sabotage the project must be immense.

1950s kit:





SA2010 kit:

A press conference MC’d by Eric Wynalda and featuring US manager Bob Bradley and Walter Bahr, the latter a member of that 1950s US team and an adorably stereotypical “old man” type in looks and personality.





Before we even started the guys at Nike actually asked me if I’d like to open the Q&A with the first question which, given the fact that there were plenty of actual journalists in attendance vs one comic guy, was really rather flattering.

I asked Walter how the game has changed for him since the 1950s and he really felt that success in the sport depends on the same fundamental skills and theories as it did in his day. After watching Jose Mourinho bring back memories of old school defensive italian football at its finest against Barca, it’s hard to disagree.

With a bit of a lull in the Q&A and my mind beginning to fill up with questions, I decided to go again and asked both Eric and Walter what it was like to actually go to a freakin’ World Cup. To know that your personal and professional life (and health) have aligned to allow you an opportunity few professional footballers get in their career.

Eric gave a heartfelt if expected answer, going to the World Cup was amazing especially in 94 when the US hosted. That had to have been mental, although for some reason I always felt that playing in a foreign country would be cooler than your home nation.

Walter’s answer was the one I really wanted. These days, fans and pundits generally focus on the opportunity to win the World Cup, forgetting how mental it must be to even get to go and play in one. I figured Walter of all people would be able to speak to that. After all, if football gets little respect in America now, imagine what it was like in 1950.

It turns out that none of the players were professional full time, not surprising given the era, but what I hadn’t considered was the fact that many players’ careers would be in jeopardy simply because they couldn’t get time off work to travel to matches. Walter had teammates who were dropped from the squad because of less-than-sympathetic bosses and even nearly suffered the same fate himself. Barely paid to play and living in a country where their sport barely registered in the social consciousness the players themselves remained so passionate about the game that the opportunity to travel to Brazil to play in the game’s biggest tournament must have been unfathomably exciting. Yet friends, family and co-workers just didn’t understand the importance of the tournament until Walter’s appearances on American TV turned him into somewhat of a celebrity.

He’s clearly a genuine pioneer for the sport in the US and so its only right that the sport’s growth over time has put a bigger spotlight on his own legacy. Although in a telling example of football historians and their rose-tinted specs, the story of that famous victory over England has grown his reputation to the point where his play was even compared (to even Walter’s great amusement) to Franz Beckenbauer. Hmm, maybe Pele was a bit crap after all?

The Q&A wrapped up and we got some time to check out a completely badass pop-up kit shop installed on the Niketown ground floor. The new n98 Track Jacket, new GS Polo and a few national kits were all available to be purchased and customised with vinyl printing and, my favourite, embroidery.

We were generously allowed to pick up an item or two as a going-away prezzie, so I got a custom Studs Up n98 top done. I think it is, as the kids say, the dogs’ bollocks.











On the way out, the lads at the Nike ID kit shop let me know that they were using one of the spare Studs Up vinyls from my jacket to create an extra display polo that would be hanging up all week. So if you’re in New York you’ve got no excuse not only to check out the awesome football-cised Nike Town but to also spot the Studs Up polo!