New England shirt design by Peter Saville

Multi-coloured dandruff / crucifixes... That's the latest design quirk in the new England football shirt designed by Peter Saville which will be worn by the team for the first time on September 3rd for their match against Bulgaria.

Which long-sufffering fan will be willing to spend £49.99 on this?






Source: Creative Review

Support England in the World Cup by creating your own England shirt and getting a squad number, thanks to the Football Association (FA)'s new Facebook

More than 2,000 people have already joined the virtual squad including Stephen Fry (no. 30), Tim Lovejoy (26) and JLS (46). The England players themselves are numbers 1 to 23.

To join the ‘official England squad' and create your own shirt complete with name and number (that can also be posted as your profile picture if you so wish), click here.

Facebook introduces World Cup passion index

Facebook has launched a World Cup index which allows global football fans to rank national teams.

The ‘Goal!' leaderboard, found on the Sports on Facebook Page, connects fans by allowing them to show their support of a national team.

Users can ‘like' their favourite teams, publish a news feed story, recommend a team to their friends and invite friends who are not on the social networking site to support a team.

Facebook will track and rank teams based on a "Passion Index", which is a measure of a team's total number of "Likes" divided by the internet population of the country it represents.

Chile currently lies top of the leaderboard, with current world champions Italy in 6th place and England in 15th. European champions Spain lie one place ahead of England in 14th.

Source: Brand Republic

Peter Blake tie-in with Chelsea FC

Loving Peter Blake's (somewhat unlikely) tie-up with Chelsea Football Club. The famous Pop Artist behind the album cover for the Beatles' Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, has been brought in to back the launch of their new kit.

All those familiar with my work for Jewish Book Week know that I have been greatly influenced by Blake's collages. and follow him closely.

And now created an artwork to celebrate the launch of the new Adidas Chelsea home shirt, supported by a microsite, video and social media campaign created by ad agency Iris.

The launch will include a three-foot high collage created by Blake, which will appear in the Chelsea megastore and in sponsor Adidas's shops from 6 May, that aims to celebrate the club's staff, players and fans.

Images used in the collage tell the story of Chelsea from the terrier that played a role in the creation of the club and the development of Stamford Bridge to the £1 note that Ken Bates used to buy it in 1982.

Adidas's campaign, created by the ad agency Iris, is called "Made from 100% Chelsea". Blake was filmed for a "making of" video that will be available online.

The first 10,000 fans to purchase the new home kit, which has a red collar and trim in tribute to the Chelsea Pensioners, will receive a limited edition print of Blake's piece.

This is seriously enough to turn me into being a Chelsea supporter. No more Leyton Orient for me...