Just to put the record straight … BEHC is NOT changing its official Club socks (either home or away) this season, so please go ahead and continue to order these online in the usual way. What IS also happening, however, is as follows …

Around 88% of our members are completely happy with the current socks and don't understand what all the fuss is about. The other 12% (of whom I am one myself!) are a bit less satisfied, and find them a little tight-fitting, not stretchy enough, and therefore prone to wear out more quickly. In reality, all this probably has much to do with other issues such as size of shin-pads or the amount of time you leave the socks in the tumble-dryer (which you are advised not to do anyway).

With the costs associated with holding stock ready (in five shoe sizes), there is really no point in making an immediate knee-jerk (or even ankle-tweak!) reaction and changing the sock manufacture overnight, especially when the vast majority of players are happy with the existing garment. We could even end up changing socks and making the situation worse, not better!

So … what we are doing instead is getting our Men's and Ladies 1s to test-drive an alternative sock during the 2018-2019 season to see if it ticks all the right boxes in terms of fit, comfort, wear, cost etc. Only then, and assuming the guinea-pig sock does indeed satisfy the exacting standards of our test-drivers, will we consider replacing the existing ones for 2019-2020, OK?

It makes sense logistically, economically, and for the longer-term to do this properly, so we shall do precisely that.