There are always different urgencies competing for fans’ attention when pre-season comes around. Transfers, sure, of the coming and going variety, that’s one thing. Another big issue is always the kit. What will the team be wearing? When will it be unveiled? When can we wear it? Why does it look like that?

The latter question came up unexpectedly on the first day of pre-season, when Leeds United posted a clip of head of running repairs Rob Price greeting our players for medical testing at Leeds Beckett’s Carnegie Sports Centre, wearing a hideous shirt:

???? @marcroca21 x @RobinKoch25 pic.twitter.com/zjnxbAYTGM

— Leeds United (@LUFC) June 27, 2022

Before hordes of angry fans could swarm the hills around Cookridge and tear this abominable fabric from his chest, someone at Leeds had the savvy idea of sticking a new signing in one of the new players’ tracksuits, and posting a picture of him looking smart. Marc Roca in blueish, with highlights that are yellowish if you like them, piss-orange if you don’t. All we could ask for. Almost, because the unpronounceable alleged bookies Essbeeoh-t’zero-pee still have their logo cluttering an arm up:

???? Roc’ing the new training wear! pic.twitter.com/jYHphEIUZf

— Leeds United (@LUFC) June 27, 2022

While the intention of teasing this might be to assuage thirst for the actual first, second and third kits, things don’t work like that, so now everyone has seen one thing they all want to see the rest. All in good time, I’m sure, unless we’re planning to kick off against Brisbane Roar down under in grundies.

The real action, though, was in the photos of players turning up. Driving out to the former nursing college to be poked, prodded, scanned and measured has something of the school trip about it for the players, because it’s not a holiday, but it’s not like going to work either, and most of all because they get to wear their own clothes. What clothes? These clothes:

???? Good to be back! pic.twitter.com/M4VnMA0gjf

— Leeds United (@LUFC) June 27, 2022

Pascal Struijk first. That ‘Art That Kills’ shirt is by Gallery Dept., a Los Angeles brand founded by designer Josué Thomas, then closed down, then sort of opened again? Whatever, as the shirt indicates, Thomas wants people to think of his clothes as art, not commodity, so mystique is part of the package. As is £200+ for one of those shirts. Mystique is also part of Struijk’s package, as with every season he grows more and more into a sort of Premier League cavalier, so until he starts turning out in a lace shirt and a large feathered hat, this will do.

Pat Bamford’s hoodie feels very on-brand for his whole deal because ‘Places Plus Faces’ started out on Tumblr. I will pay a handsome bounty to anyone who can track down the teenage Bamford’s Tumblr. Back in 2013 Solomon Boyede suggested his pal Imran Ciesay should post his collection of backstage concert photos online, and since putting their logo on a few hoodies to promote their Tumblr, the brand went boom and now they do everything from clothing to books to films to incense sticks. This year they released a book of polaroids of A$AP Rocky, Iris Law, Skepta, Idris Elba and Tyler, the Creator. Pat’s hoodie is from a Places + Faces x Call of Duty: Vanguard collab released last November.

Bill Ayling is wearing a nice white hoodie from Stockholm’s Acne Studios, featuring their ‘Face’, so called because it’s a face. A square one! Think a ball would work better but that’s just me. Acne’s creative director and co-founder Jonny Johannson told High Snobiety that he drew ‘this Swedish guy’ when he needed something to go on a bag. “And that’s how it came to be, just an ordinary Swedish citizen. Not too happy, not too sad, but somewhere in between. Lagom in Swedish.” Perhaps this is Luke’s tribute to Pontus Jansson. Acne’s headquarters is in a great building, a former Czechoslovakian embassy. Those hoodies sell for around £350, which will be relevant in the next paragraph.

And Rodrigo? That’s a Nike Jordan Why Not? tee that goes for about £35. Bless him. He actually has a sponsorship deal with Nike but it’s sweet to think of our supposedly £100,000 a week striker flicking through the catalogue and picking out the cheapest things. ‘I know they’ll give me more expensive stuff, but I like the design!’ You would spend almost as much buying his Space Jam backpack. If someone had turned up on one of my actual school trips wearing £65 worth of Nike t-shirt and backpack they would have caused an absolute sensation and other kids would have spent all day trying to set his shirt on fire while he screamed that it had been a special birthday present and the teachers despaired at him for not following the instructions to dress down and turning up in his absolute best clothes. But that was 1996. As it is, having our record signing walking in among the high fashion of his teammates like he’s trying to impress at a new school, not realising how much trouble he’s asking for by wearing his backpack over both shoulders, is filling my third successive summer with Rodrigo’s-gonna-come-good optimism. ⬢