Watched the England v Norn Iron match on Saturday with Dad - good father-son bonding. It was a good game but having watched the scoreless first half in its entirity I was popping in and out during the second half and missed ALL the goals. Quite good going for a 4-0 victory. I'm sure it's no coincidence that once England base the team on a core of (former) West Hame players: Rio, Frank Lampard and Joe Cole - things start to happen. Well it worked in 1966.

Obviously the most important development on Saturday was the launch of the new white kit. The Guardian's footy email The Fiver captured the gravity of the launch on Thursday:

A clearly uncomfortable Michael Owen was cajoled into giving his verdict on the new product and could only stammer, "It's fantastic, er, I've worn a lot of jerseys in my career but, um, this is definitely the latest." Never a truer word spoken, and certainly not by David Beckham, who added, "it's important for the team to look good and now, obviously, we look very good." Christ.

Nevertheless I did quite like it - that little red cross of St George on the shoulder - quite cool. But what's with the star? Just like on the Red shirts Umbro have take the decision to embroider a golden star above the FA logo - looky..



This bothers me. I mean what is the point? Have Umbro unearthed some new heraldic secret hitherto lost to historians? Did Richard the Lionheart never go on crusade before picking up needle and thread and doing himself a nice star on that new battle tunic his mum had got for him? What gives?

The fact is that football shirts with such stars on them tend to belong to countries enjoying titles such as "The democratic republic of.." or "The people's republic of.." or even "The people's democratic republic of..". The kind of countries where "Partisans" played a significant part in their recent history as either freedom fighters or collaborators depending which way their guns were pointing. To be frank, there's something boldly Balkan about it. Is this cunning satire by FA/Umbro suits about the parlous state of British democracy? I think we should be told.