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Launching last season’s kit into space was going to take some beating, but I’d say that Reading’s marketing team came pretty close as they decided to use virtual reality to reveal the team’s new shirts ahead of the 2017/18 season.
Down at the Madejski Stadium this morning, the media, followed by 100 competition winning fans, were surrounded by club legends, taken to the training ground to speak to Jaap Stam and finally to the dressing room just by putting on a VR headset. Then Liam Moore and Joey van den Berg did the honours...
Home Kit
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On a day of secrets being kept from the word go, one was for sure and that was that we would be seeing blue and white hoops for the 25th consecutive year on the home shirt. The bigger question was how Puma would mix it up, and perhaps as expected used the bubble design that has been seen on many of the manufacturer’s other shirts this summer.
The sleeves are solid blue with the hoops once again faded on the bank. The shorts are white for the first time since 2011/12 and the socks are also white.
Away Kit
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After 2015/16’s African violet and last season’s luminous yellow, the club have once again plumped for a very visible away shirt - orange with faded black hoops. Reading and Borussia Dortmund are the only two clubs to have this template. A part of me thinks that the orange may be a tribute to all the ‘Dutchness’ in RG2 at the moment.
The sleeves and socks are both black.
Goalkeeper Kit
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Pretty simple here. The shirt, shorts and socks are all black with pink panels underneath the arms and on the sleeves. Can’t help but think Ali Al-Habsi would have looked rather nice in it...
We also made our own little video (not in VR unfortunately) having just seen the kits for the first time...
Let us know your thoughts on the new strips in the comments below. Many thanks to the club for inviting TTE down to experience what really was a unique kit launch!