As I’ve mentioned, I’m a big fan of the gaudier end of the football shirt spectrum; those kits where the designers frolicked fancy-free across their polyester canvas, shirts with eye-straining patterns or clashing colours, shirts that become a kind of potent anti-fashion. I figured it’s about time I covered one of those shirts here at Football Laundry, so I give to you AFC Ajax’s 1997-98 away shirt. It’s so close to being a "normal" shirt, too. Very dark blue with a bit of coloured piping is hardly ground-breaking stuff, but as you can see Umbro’s designers didn’t stop there. I like to think it began with the faint red gradient at the shoulders, followed by the unusual vertical position of the sponsor’s logo before descending into a repetitive madness of clone-stamped Ajax badges. The club wanted to make absolutely sure you didn’t – couldn’t – forget that this is an Ajax shirt by including the club’s badge no less than nineteen times. There’s the badge itself...