Manchester City have launched their new 2025/26 home kit with a unique film in celebration of the vibrant local community and Manchester’s cultural history.
It takes place in the home of the Clayton Supporters Club, only a stone’s throw away from the Etihad Stadium.
The film features star players like Erling Haaland, club legends like Mike Summerbee and even manager Pep Guardiola, who draws the raffle to win the new shirt at the end.
The new kit for next season features the unmistakable sky blue with a white sash, as the club seemingly enters a transitional period after a disappointing season compounded by the FA Cup final defeat at the hands of Crystal Palace last week.
The strip came as a bit of a shock, with Puma opting to add a diagonal sash to the home kit for the first time in the club’s history, with it featuring on several of the club’s away shirts since it was first used in the 1970s.
City fan Luke Stanley runs the ‘mcfc lads’ YouTube fan channel with over 350,000 subscribers, and he hopes the new kit will inspire a season of success.
“I do quite like the kit. I reckon it’s a solid 7/10. The shade of blue reminds me of the 2017/18 Centurions home kit, so I’m hoping for the same level of success.
“This season hasn’t been amazing at all. It was a real shame to lose the FA Cup final, but if we finish 3rd and qualify for the UCL, I’ll take it.
“Hopefully next season we can challenge for the title and UCL and maybe win one of them. I’m hoping for a lot of new signings this summer to replace the inevitable outgoings. Hopefully, in the words of Pep, we will be there.”
The announcement video is set in a Working Men’s club, in which a young woman wins the signed new kit in Pep’s raffle, before she shows it off to her friend in the streets of Manchester the next day.
Traditional Working Men’s clubs have been a staple of northern culture, set up as a booze-filled haven for working class men to shelter from their gruelling industrial jobs.
At their peak, over one in ten British adults were part of at least one club.
Formed amidst a moral panic in Victorian times that working men were spending too much time in the pub, the early aim of these clubs was to tempt the men into more sober forms of socialising and leisure, but it wasn’t long before beer was even cheaper in the clubs than the pubs.
The country’s oldest Working Mens Club is based in Manchester, opened in 1857.
With a big summer coming up for Manchester City, who knows which European talent might be lighting up the Etihad in this shirt next season.
Newcastle United have also released their shirt for next season.
