Reading Unveil Great Home Kit, Decent Away Kit

Reading’s 2020/21 kits are here, and they actually look pretty good! We didn’t know before today that they’d be unveiled, but after a cheeky teaser from the club on Twitter, they came out at 10am to an overall positive reception.

The home kit is certainly the best one, and got near-universal praise from fans on Twitter when it came out. Here’s how it looks:

Reading FC on Twitter

Macron have excelled themselves with this one. Although it doesn’t do anything too revolutionary (which is probably for the best), it manages to have a retro feel while also looking fresh and modern.

Having a collar works well, and that’s seemed to be a lucky charm in years gone by, with Reading winning the Championship twice in a home kit that featured a collar. This time though, a red/blue/white trim has been added, and that gives a nice 90s feel.

The patterned blue sleeves are less traditional, but still work well for me, fitting in nicely with the rest of the kit while adding a more modern twist. I also like the decision to make the hoops solid blue, rather than with the smaller stripes we had on the 2019/20 home kit. Bonus points also for the pretty consistent colour scheme and integration of the Macron and Casumo logos.

All in all, it’s smart, doesn’t try to overdo things and looks great. It seems that plenty of thought has been put in to make this kit look and feel uniquely like a Reading kit - not a template design that could have been recoloured for another club.

9/10

Now for the away kit...

Reading FC on Twitter

A solid albeit unspectacular effort. It’s not as good as the home kit because it’s less ambitious overall, but it’s still got some good things going for it.

Firstly, red is a decent choice, and breaks from the last two years of having a predominantly black/dark grey away kit. It’s also worth noting that this is the first red away kit since we won the Championship in 2011/12, which the club mentioned in their announcement piece.

Mixing ‘Barnsley red’ and Nottingham Forest red’ as Not The Top 20 aptly put it brings something new to the table, although I can’t help but wonder how good it would look with just the darker red. For one thing, the white logos stand out better against that shade than they do against the lighter one.

Overall, it’s fine and it may well grow on me, but it could have been a lot better.

6/10

Lastly the goalie top:

Reading FC on Twitter

I’m not keen on this one. It’s mostly fine with the yellow/black, but the random lines at the bottom ruin it. If they’d continued all over the top, that would have made some sense, but going by this version, it looks more like the designer’s Photoshop crashed halfway through production and they forgot to fill in the rest.

It’s also the exact same goalie kit as Stoke’s.

2/10