SPAOTP: Nearly time to go...

With a week to go before the 2010 World Cup comes to an end, it's time to tell you that next Sunday will also, sadly, see the end of Some People Are On The Pitch.

After four years of blogging about football and all its interesting facets, I've decided that the time is right to bring an end to this humble little project of ours.

And I say 'ours' because although I was the one that created this website back in 2006, it's been my great good fortune to share the writing duties over the last two years with a couple of outstanding friends – Terry Duffelen and Graham Sibley. Without them, SPAOTP would have foundered back in the early part of 2008. As it is, they came along at exactly the right time to help reinvent the site and give it a fresh sense of purpose.

The fact that SPAOTP has become a well-known football blog among the many thousands on the web is, I'd like to think, a testament to the efforts each of us have made in writing articles that have gone on to be read by many, many people around the world.

Unfortunately for me, an ever decreasing amount of free time has left me frustratingly unable to write more and do more to improve the popularity of the website. As a husband and father, my life has become ever more busy with the everyday work required just to support my own family. With that in mind, I must concede that there's nothing else I can do to help Some People Are On The Pitch compete against so many excellent football blogs.

I've therefore decided, in consultation with Terry and Graham, to bring an end to SPAOTP on the day of the World Cup Final, one week from today. But before you ask, I won't be strolling off into the sunset never to be seen again. Nor, for that matter, will SPAOTP's flame be completely extinguished.

Terry and Graham have kindly given me the opportunity to contribute on an occasional basis to a new website that's been created called Football Fairground. On it, some old familiar features like the TV Previews, Bundesbag and Football Americana will combine with our other web projects such as The Onion Bag and The Sound of Football to provide a wide range of wonderful content all under one roof.

We hope you like the new site and we hope, too, that you enjoy the final week of Some People Are On The Pitch. The time for handing out thanks and getting all nostalgic will come later, but for now it's back to the blog…

Best wishes,
Chris O.

World Cup Kit Parade: None of the above...

And so to the only four teams not signed up to the big three kit manufacturers (Adidas, Nike and Puma).

England's kit has never been supplied by any of those three (and we shudder to think what that might look like if it ever were). For the bulk of the last fifty-odd years it's been Umbro's privilege to do that and after numerous shirt designs they arrived at the 2010 vintage which was entirely white, save for the England badge and Umbro's red diamond logo.

Call it what you like – minimalist, plain, featureless, whatever – there's no getting away from the brilliant sense of simplicity it embodies. It's almost as if Umbro are saying only to things matter here – the national team's colour and the badge. If you think about it, that's quite an admirable stance to take as it brings everything back to the origins of kit design when fancy embellishments and weird colour-schemes were totally beyond comprehension.

There is, of course, the small matter of Umbro's 'tailored' styling which makes the shirt actually look like a shirt rather than a silky piece of fabric that's been rattled off a production line without any thought in southern Asia. It's got a proper collar, tapered sides and, well, it looks like it's just had a good ironing, frankly. 'Smart' barely does it justice…

But that's not all: the red away shirt was only recently launched and it too gives a generous nod in the direction of days gone by, notably the victorious era of the 1960's. With a round-necked shirt that was all red with only white cuffs to distract the view, the accompanying white shorts and red socks won’t have failed to bring back happy memories to all England fans of a certain age.

Ironically in this World Cup, we got to see this away kit in slightly modified form with the introduction of red shorts too. Very rarely have England worn an all-red change kit but when Fabio Capello's men strode out to play Slovenia a week ago or so, one wondered whether this wouldn't be the last we'd see of it. As it turned out, the Second Round match against Germany allowed for one more viewing, but we reckon it should be adopted permanently. It's bold, bright and a classic look for the England team to wear when the all-white isn't an option.

As for the other minor kit manufacturers, there's not a lot we can say really. Chile's kit is made by Brooks – probably better known for making sports shoes - and it too has been designed to be stylish in an understated way. Sadly we never got to see the change strip of white-red-blue, but at least the home strip looked smart without the garish use of formerly used devices like a huge Reebok logo.

North Korea seem to change kit manufacturer quite regularly, even switching to latest supplier Legea on the eve of the World Cup this summer. The Italian kit-maker promptly knocked off an uninspiring red outfit for the Dear Leader's boys and they duly repaid their gratitude by losing all three of their games, one of which saw them concede seven against Portugal. Perhaps a big Reebok logo might have done the trick…

Finally, there's Honduras and their kit was made by Joma, a Spanish company who are making inroads across many parts of the footballing world. Fans of Leicester City and Charlton will be all too familiar with the name, but whether they'll have been as satisfied as the Honduran fans with their kit remains to be seen.

The team from CONCACAF were seen all too briefly wearing an all-white strip featuring a shirt that had a blue band across the upper chest. The band faded from blue to white the nearer it got to the middle – a nice touch – and there were also some odd blue slashes either side of the bottom part of the shirt which, while serving no purpose, at least provided another point of interest. The away kit saw a reversal of the same, being all blue with white bits of business here and there. Quite nice, all in all.

And that's that. A very brief overview of the kits on show at this World Cup, and perhaps more importantly the sanity employed by each of the manufacturers when it came to designing them.

Once again, our great thanks go to John Devlin from True Colours Football Kits (www.truecoloursfootballkits.com) for the use of his excellent football kit graphics. To see all of John's World Cup kit designs in greater detail, click here.)

World Cup TV Preview: 2 - 3 July

Friday 2 July

15.00 Netherlands v Brazil, Quarter Final, ITV1/ITVHD
I have an uneasy feeling about this one; I reckon this could turn really ugly. What on paper should be an amazing game will be broken up in moments of handbags and simulation. Annoying and frustrating but if it's only slightly peppered with moments of absolute genius, we might just forgive it. We don't need to tell you to try and sneak out of work early for this, do we.

19.30 Uruguay v Ghana, Quarter Final, ITV1/ITVHD
Plain fact: one of these teams will be in a World Cup semi-final - and this isn't down to luck of the draw, it's down to them going out and performing well against strong teams and getting the result. I had serious misgivings about Ghana before the tournament: their best players either unfit or out of form and despite getting to the final of the African Cup of Nations not really convincing along the way. For Uruguay, the Diego Forlan fairytale goes on. Should provide good entertainment; we have thrown around ideas of doing a Sound of Football podcast about this live from Socrates 5 - but don't be surprised if it doesn't surface.

Saturday 3 July

15.00 Argentina v Germany, Quarter Final, BBC1/BBCHD
This is going to be superb. Trust me. If both teams are on their game this could be one of those all-time World Cup classics. No goals, penalties and three sending offs it is then.

19.30 Paraguay v Spain, Quarter Final, BBC1/BBCHD
Earlier this week, I was tempted by a 73/4 bet on it being all-South American semi-finals - the only thing that stopped me was this one. That said, Paraguay have been extremly well organised defensively and haven't conceded since Daniele De Rossi's goal in the opening game. Like Portugal though they could find any cracks will be exposed by a Spanish team growing in confidence. A good footballing game but maybe not the most entertaining.

The (World Cup) Friday List of Little or No Consequence #171

Seeing red
The 14 Players That Have So Far Been Sent Off During the 2010 World Cup

1. Nicolás Lodeiro (for Uruguay v France)
2. Abdelkader Ghezzal (for Algeria v Slovenia)
3. Aleksandar Luković (for Serbia v Ghana)
4. Tim Cahill (for Australia v Germany)
5. Itumeleng Khune (for South Africa v Uruguay)
6. Sani Kaita (for Nigeria v Greece)
7. Miroslav Klose (for Germany v Serbia)
8. Harry Kewell (for Australia v Ghana)
9. Kaká (for Brazil v Ivory Coast)
10. Valon Behrami (for Switzerland v Chile)
11. Yoann Gourcuff (for France v South Africa)
12. Antar Yahia (for Algeria v USA)
13. Marco Estrada (for Chile v Spain)
14. Ricardo Costa (for Portugal v Spain)