Summer is now a distant memory.
Temperatures are colder, nights are longer and some dickhead around the corner has already got his Christmas tree up.
In the world of football, that once steady flowing stream of ‘leaked’ football kits has slowed to a mere trickle.
Slowed, but not entirely stopped.
As we told you earlier in the week, football fans were torn by what appeared to be the latest offering from the Dutch national team, which appeared to take inspiration from one of the Netherlands’ most famous sons, Vincent van Gogh.
The shirt featured the Post-Impressionist painter’s trademark brush work on the the hay bales in ‘The Afternoon Nap’, from 1890: the natural inspiration for a football shirt.
New Holland home kit.
We are not sure how Nike have managed to ruin such an iconic shirt.
😷 😷 😷 pic.twitter.com/bouNdEh7wt
— 101 Great Goals (@101greatgoals) November 17, 2016
With opinions split on the new shirt, it soon became clear that it was actually just a hoax.
This tweet from the Dutch football team’s official twitter account confirmed as much…
Dit is niet het nieuwe Oranjeshirt. We worden hier een oor aangenaaid 😉 https://t.co/rPAvuL69Lh
— KNVB (@KNVB) November 17, 2016
Assuming your Dutch isn’t all that great, this translates to something like:
‘This is not the new orange shirt. We haven’t sewn on an ear.’
This was, of course, a reference to Van Gogh hacking off his own ear in what is believed to have been an attempt to woo a certain woman in his life.
The hunt for the next ‘leaked’ kit goes on.
