Football shirts: How they got ultra local and hyper cool

[UIPo]

The yellow and black stripes down the sleeve of Manchester City's away shirt is based on the Hacienda colour scheme

An ambitious, flagship project that brought Manchester moments of ecstasy thanks, in part, to its owners' lavish spending.

That parallel did not make the press release.

Instead when Manchester City and Puma launched this season's away shirt, inspired by the Hacienda - the fabled Factory Records-owned nightclub at the epicentre of the 1980s and 1990s "Madchester" scene - both the sports brand and the Premier League superpower kept it simple.

"The black and yellow stripes were something we saw a lot around the city," said Puma's Josele Angulo.

"For us, it was really important to highlight the story of the city... to find a connection that makes sense.

"We realised the Hacienda was something that was really representative."

City are not alone in blindsiding fans with unexpected but familiar looks.

The trend to incorporate local motifs in kits can be seen throughout English football's pyramid and beyond.

The Mod culture that thrived in West London in the 1960s is behind Chelsea's polo-shirt-style away look this season.

Coventry, Chelsea and Dortmund have all released shirts this season with local culture central to their design

The unique ska-fusion music genre 2 Tone, which sprung from Coventry 40 years ago, is the inspiration for the club's wildly successful third shirt.

inRead invented by Teads

Middlesbrough's home shirt last season featured lyrics from Infant Hercules, local band Cattle And Cane's ode to their hometown, on the inside of the collar.

In Germany, Borussia Dortmund crashed their own website when they released a surprise special edition, black-and-silver kit earlier this month which celebrates the area's coal-mining and steel-producing past, and commemorates a year since the closure of the final mine in the Ruhr Valley.

While in the North West Counties League Premier Division, the ninth tier of English football, 1874 Northwich have been selling out of a viral design that features some of the town's Tudor architecture.