To celebrate the new era, Dogs decided to have a new looks (again !?). Not only did they decide to have a new look, they also want to establish their well deserved identity. "It is twelve years since the establishment of the Team. It is time to have our official logo, if not too late ..." The Chairman. You are right, they don't have any logo whatsoever for more than a decade! Unbelievable ...
Up till now, "流浪狗" was a spiritual thing. Each Dog had his own interpretation and imagination. To Winkins, it has to be a dirty, hungry and injured Chinese dog. To Sing, it has to be a fighting bull dog with raw meat in its month. To Hoi, it has to be a mini Peking dog. It is not an easy task for anyone to put this spiritual concept into a real image. But Hoi did it.
Above - These are some never-seen-before prototype designs
Above - This is how we get to the final design
It took weeks before Hoi and Winkins finally agreed upon the design and color pattern. Unlike professional clubs who change their logo from time to time, I believe this logo design would last for as long as ... DUFC would last.
A little story: we send our drafted logo design to Mr. Choi, the manager of Tak Chun (who produced out shirts), and it was he who really "drew" us the final design. Strictly speaking, the DUFC logo was finalized by him (with the approval of Hoi and Winkins, you may say).
So, the logo is ready.
Nowadays, professional clubs launch new team shirts every year (home and away, plus sometimes 3rd). Fans have to wait nervously before they know the design(s). Though they will buy it (or them) regardless of the design(s), they could never have their say on it (or them). However, DUFC provided the Dogs a choice. With the previous 2 shirts ( Second Team Jersey and Third Team Jersey ) determined by Jackie alone, the production team would rather prefer the Dogs vote for their own preference this time.
Above - Shirts for voting
The final vote is not as clear cut as the production team might think. Two shirts got very similar number of votes. However the blue shirt won. It is not the best design but it is indeed the best among the choices.
So, the shirt is ready.
The shirts were produced by Tak Chun, a local company which offers very competitive prices on non-branded (or you might say "fake") football shirts. They can offer a package of [ (1) a shirt with name and number at the back plus small number in the front; (2) a short with small number; (3) tailor make team logo and Chinese logo; (4) attach the team logo and Chinese logo to the shirt and (5) attach the Chinese logo to the short ] at only one hundred something HK dollars per set. What a bargain!
You might wonder why we need a Chinese logo if we already got the official team logo. It was not at all the original idea. Football shirts produced by Tak Chun are not really non-branded; the shirt we picked was under a brand Point Kick. For that, a blue "PK" (I suppose it is the logo of the manufacturing company) was sewn at the left of the chest. To rectify it, the production team came up with a little Chinese logo (with words "流浪狗") just large enough to cover the "PK" logo. After all, no Dog would like to be a PK, right?
The shirt is in fact a fake copy of an adidas design. The fade-out pattern in the front of the shirt was badly copied. It was BLUE in color like the second team jersey.
Tak Chun offers various options regarding fonts of name and number. You can have any fake fonts from any team from Premier League, La Liga or nations across the world. For DUFC, adidas font was chosen to match the adidas design. The names and numbers were "painted" on the shirt by screen printing (絲網印刷). With luck, you would find some little hole(s) without white paint on your number. And that makes your shirt so unique ... Congratulations!
To cope with the cutting edge technology of ClimateLite (by adidas) and Dri-FIT (by nike), this PK shirt comes with the PK-cuT technology. It is the opposite of providing breathable fabric to conduct sweat away (by ClimateLite) and cuttings that perfectly fits the body (by Dri-FIT); PK-cuT gives you weird cuttings and terrible hot fabric. Great!
From the various lengthy conversations between Mr. Choi and Winkins, we knew that they have 3 football teams which were playing at different levels of local leagues. Obviously, all shirts and shorts were produced by their own company. Like those professional clubs, all their 3 teams change their home and away shirts every season. This might be the reason why they pay little attention to the quality of their shirts. They get thrown away anyway ...
Above - Drying the painted names and numbers
This shirt also marks another milestone of the Team: with 23 players, it is the biggest squad even. Golden 23 is the latest title of our beloved Captain Tsubasa. Besides, 23 players is the full team requirement by both the FIFA World Cup and the UEFA EURO. It indeed means something.
On 21 October, 2005, the shirts were distributed to the players before a match in Tung Chung. In total, 25 shirts were produced (23 Dogs and 2 la la team members). Below is the roster:-
Comments from Dogs:-
"Wing, are you afraid of taking the No. 10?" Winkins
"Why should I?" Ryan
x x x
"It doesn't fit to me at all! See, the shirt has a deep V ..." Wilson
"That's the PK-cuT ..." Winkins
x x x
"The quality is totally unacceptable! And it smells ..." Jackie
"That's the PK-cuT ..." Winkins
x x x
"The shirt should be BLUE, Everton wears BLUE ..." Jason
x x x
"As long as I get the No. 7, I am fine with everything ..." Curtis
x x x
"OK la ..." Hoi
"Positive Thinking Principal No. 1: If you think you can, you can! You should have faith!" Master Plato