Newcastle United have become the 11th Premier League club to unveil their home kit for 2019/20, but the release has been overshadowed by fan backlash over the club’s claims about the strip’s origins.

The jersey, manufactured by Puma, quite notably differs from iterations of previous years, resembling a black-based shirt with two thick, white vertical bands rather than a more traditional ‘black and white stripes’ design.  


The kit’s black, circular collar features a white trim; a monochromatic colourway which is also adopted for the club crest, appearing in the middle of the chest just below the white Puma logo.

The home strip for next season is supposedly dedicated to the Magpies’ success in the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup back in 1969, marking 50 years since the club took out the now-defunct continental title.  

The Inter-Cities Fairs Cup was a European competition which ran from 1955-1971, primarily established to promote international trade fairs between major cities across the continent.

It seems, however, that there’s a pretty glaring issue with the club’s big claim about the shirt paying tribute to the victorious Class of ’69…

It hardly resembles the original.


As demonstrated above, the original shirt worn by the Fairs Cup-winning squad incorporated the club’s traditional black and white stripes design which, comparatively, is quite dissimilar to the ‘more black than white’ strip which the Toon Army will see on the pitch in 2019/20.

In fact, the shirt’s circular neckline and collar trim are the only features to even somewhat resemble the 1969 strip.

Magpies’ fans have weighed in with their views on next season’s strip below: