Finally, we get around to part three of the new Premier League kits for 2016-17. We’re three games in so far, the big rich clubs who couldn’t distinguish their clunis from their articulatio cubiti last year have all won their first three with big Zlatan/Hazard/Pep shaped victories. As Leicester showed last year though, this league is not just about the big clubs, so let’s focus on the ones who are down near the bottom, the teams who avoided relagtion last year, and the three teams who were promoted from whatever the second division is called these days.

PREMIER LEAGUE PART THREE: THE LAST (AND PROBABLY LEAST) SIX

CRYSTAL PALACE:

Nice to see Palace still in the top flight, and spending money too. I wish they had won the Cup last year, though Pardew’s little dance was just too much. Will they do well this year? Yeah, they should stay up, because they have a nice pair of kits. The home one seems to have more blue than usual, forgoing the stripes for a large blue band. It’s pretty stylish. The away kit hearkens back to older Palace kits, and I like it when they have a yellow change. The original Crystal Palace was in Hyde Park housing the Great Exhibition of 1851 – the year ironically in which the hated ‘windows tax’ was abolished (you would be taxed for how many windows you had on your house, MPs called it “daylight robbery”), Crystal Palace was a building made entirely of windows). Well, let’s hope Palace prove to give us a “Great Exhibition” this year, otherwise their Premier League status will go out the window. I’m here all week, folks.

BOURNEMOUTH:

Sorry, this one must have gotten mixed up, there’s no way Bournemouth are still in the Premier League. What? They are? What witchcraft is this, when Bournemouth are in the Premier League, (a league of which Leicester City are the reigning champions?), and they just went and signed Jack Wilshere on loan from Arsenal. Bournemouth is known for being a favourite retirement destination for senior citizens who want to live beside the seaside. Wilshere is in his early 20s, I dunno, kids get older every year don’t they. Their home kit is decent again, the third kit is a bit of an ugly shade of mint ice cream, probably tastes very nice down on the beach though.  I love the away kit though, it has a similar design to last year’s Marseille away kit. Bournemouth are the Cherries; let’s hope their season has one on top.

SUNDERLAND:

Ok, I’m sorry, but last year Sunderland were the absolutest shittest. They were dreadful, utterly gobsmackingly awful. So how the bloody hell are they still in the Premier League? Oh right, three teams were actually worse than them. But how? Oh right, Norwich, Newcastle and oh my god you’re right, Aston Villa, they were just crap. Well Sunderland avoided relegation because they brought in Samwise Allardyce, who Don’t Be Goin Down, bro. So they should be ok, because he will keep them up. What? He left? Where is he – what? Managing England? Bloody-hell. At least England will avoid relegation now too. So who did they bring in? Someone good I bet, with a solid record. Hold on, David Moyes? Now, to be fair, he is probably a good man for the job. Nobody in the world could have taken over from Fergie at United, but he was always pretty solid in the past, and there’s no reason he wouldn’t be able to pull Sunderland into shape and keep them up. He won’t though, because unfortunately they have decided on what is by far the ugliest away kit in the whole division, and for that crime against kits they must go down to the EFL and think about what they have done. Also for being the city whose early ‘leave’ vote in the referendum was the moment when the pound plummeted. Although ironically, this meant that it became cheaper for me to buy football kits in England. That purple and hot pink thing though looks a bit too cheap; who would buy that? Except maybe 1980s New-Mutants-era Magneto, he probably would. Verdict this year? Days of Fuchsia Past.

BURNLEY

I like Burnley. I saw them play Spurs years ago in the 190s in the League Cup, I think it was called the Endsleigh League Cup or something back then, and they had a cool Mitre kit, and Tony Cottee I think. It was ages ago. I like their accent too. Their kit of claret and blue and white puts them in the claret and blue category of clubs, your Villas and West Hams, something classic and old-fashioned about them. This kit is alright, not amazing but it does its job. The away kit is similarly ok. I don’t know. I haven’t really got anything bad to say about Burnley. I’m glad they are up in the top flight. Ok I’ll say one bad thing, they sound a bit like a team from Roy of the Rovers. You know how they all had names like Eastoke, Burndean, Blackport Rovers, those generic made-up dull-sounding English small-town names. Actually that isn’t a bad thing, that is bloody cool. Will they get relegated? I hope not, but I think they might. Unless Roy Race comes out of retirement and brings his famous Rocket! Sorry.

MIDDLESBROUGH

Middlesbrough, aka “Boro”, aka “Bro”, or “Bra” for short, were promoted (or were they “bro-moted”?) from the Championship, passing Newcastle on the way down, and now they can have a north-east derby with Sunderland, who, well, they don’t really see it as a derby, because theirs is with Newcastle. Get your own damn local derby, bra! they say. Who with, bro? I dunno, Hull City is only down the road, be a derby with them. Nah that’s too far, bra. So Middlesbrough’s home shirt looks like it was left in the road when the street-line painters were in town. I mean look at it.  And they put that blue line under it to make it look like they meant it. The away kit is ok I suppose if you need a very very very dark blue shirt with a chevron made of three shades of aqua on it. But in tandem with the home kit it looks like they got pull into a Dulux paint demonstration. I expect a big fluffy dog to show up. How will Boro do this year? Will they have a brush with relegation, or will they get into the Eu-bro-pa League? Yeah, I know that was clutching at straws.

HULL CITY

Hull are definitely getting relegated. Except, they have started well. They were unlucky to lose to Man U, otherwise they might be top of the league. Well not top, but you know what I mean. They do have a nice home kit, wide black and amber stripes, none of the tiger-stripes of old, and they also aren’t called FC Tigers of Hullchester United Bros, or whatever that owner wanted to call them.The away kit will come in handy if they play someone in amber, otherwise don’t you think they may need another kit with a little less black? Hull is one of those places that nobody wants to go to, because they haven’t been there, and because (like coastal neighbours Grimsby and Scunthorpe, it just sounds a bit crap – it actually got named in a book as the most ‘Crap Town’ in Britain) but I’ll have you know, Hull is actually really cool. I say this with absolutely no personal experience of the place, but Hull is the 2017 European City of Culture. That’s right. They don’t just give that to anyone; Plovdiv, Wroclaw, Turku, Linz, the list goes on. Philip Larkin was from here. So was Maureen Lipman, she used to be funny. Even better, the Housemartins, and the Beautiful South, who were, top paraphrase Alan Partridge, the band the Housemartins could have been. Fat Boy Slim: the DJ the Housemartins could have been. A lot of music came from Hull; Roland Gift, remember him? No? Kingmaker? I had one of their singles. Actually it isn’t even called Hull, it’s Kingston-upon-Hull, so it’s even better. Even the author of Crap Towns has changed his mind. I really want to go to Hull; as an urban sketcher, it sounds pretty interesting. I also used to occasionally visit Scarborough, further up the coast, and I like it up that way, in the Ridings. Will the Tigers stay up? I’m going to give you the truth, the Hull truth and nothing bu- no, no they won’t.

Ok this is your lot. I might maybe do kits for the Champions League, maybe not the group stages, maybe the knockouts. If Spurs are still in it by that point. In the meantime, have a fun football season, and look out for all these shirts. I guarantee that when you see Middlesbro’ play you will be bro-splaining to every-bro about their unfortunate street-line-paint bra-ccident.