Some of you here will be familiar with the fantastic footyjumpers.com, which is run by Roberth Meredith (more commonly known as "Mero"), and is a brilliantly researched, detailed look at the history of the jumper designs of VFL/AFL clubs.
Mero posts regularly on the Footy Graphic Design board at BigFooty, and in the last few days a thread was started on the board titled "Jumpers that never were". I posted this jumper, which some will remember lost out in a two-way vote in the 2007 pre-season to the much-despised "apron" design:
Later in the thread, Mero said something quite surprising about the jumper design I'd posted - it turns out he'd designed it:
"The jumper I designed, with the chevrons down the sides was leading the poll with one day to go.
And when they announced the decision it was the other jumper by something like 60% to 40%.
My thoughts were they had decided on the one they wanted, and ran the other one to make it look like the fans had a say.
Not bitter, wasn't getting anything out of it, so it doesn't matter, and I don't barrack for StKilda, but I was taking an interest because of the design, and they definitely pulled a swifty."
Later in the thread (further down this page) he talks about his involvement with the St Kilda Heritage Museum (and his contibution to the 2005 Heritage Round jumper design) and how his chevron design ended up being in the official poll.
So two issues arise here if you disliked the apron design as much as I did: firstly, of course, the fact that the club ended up wearing it at all when it shouldn't have, but there is of course the bigger issue of the Rod Butterss board - assuming what Mero said is true - effectively lying to its fans about giving it the chance to have a say in the club's operations, regardless of how much magnitude you afford the clash jumper design issue.
As an aside, his story about the 2005 Heritage Jumper is quite interesting - particularly the idea of a gold jumper as a clash design to replace the candy stripe - and the history of the St Kilda jumper's evolution is worth checking out in its own right at footyjumpers.com; you can view all the jumpers here and the full home uniforms since the establishment and the VFA days here.
