There is a mad dichotomy in football, in that it is drenched in money, but any show of wealth is met with widespread derision. Fans want their clubs to spend tens of millions on transfers, but if the player in question arrives to the game in a swagged-out Ferrari, then he’s decadent and out of touch.
Managers have traditionally been spared the hate, but as they have gradually got younger, slicker and more cosmopolitan, they’ve started to catch more and more heat. Case in point: Bournemouth manager Scott Parker, who has been mocked from pillar to podcast this week for wearing a grey Thom Browne jacket for the opening match of the Premier League season. You think that’s a boorish show of wealth? You’re going to be shocked when you hear how much Liverpool paid for Darwin Nunez.
The Football Ramble podcast labelled Parker's jacket “Awful”, while the Guardian Football Weekly podcast said the requisite four stripes on the arm (Thom Browne’s calling card) meant Parker was in fact a squadron commander, and that it confirmed he has “always been the manager that looks most like a spitfire pilot”. The Athletic ran a story comparing Premier League managers’ style from the opening weekend, describing Parker’s “latest fashion statement” (after having the gall to wear a CARDIGAN last season) as being “divisive”, in part because it cost “an eye-watering £1650”.
“Whatever the reasoning, we hope he kept the receipt,” the article continued. Bit harsh, innit? The poor man just likes nice clothes. I’d get it if he was wearing a chicken suit, or had a pair of diamante gonads glued to his forehead, but it’s a grey blazer. A. Grey. Blazer. Just saying the words is boring, so how can wearing the thing be divisive? Is it because he’s English, and English managers aren’t supposed to go in for all that frippery? That same Athletic article suggests that Frank Lampard, Mikel Arteta, Graham Potter, Marco Silva and Antonio Conte dress the same, but only Lampard and Potter look like “dads trying to make an effort.”
Well, Scott Parker made an effort, too, and it worked. Not only is he dressing well for a football manager, but he’s dressing well full stop. In addition to the TB blazer, there was a preppy tie with a little kite emblem at the centre – like something from The Irishman; very cool – and a pair of Shannon derbies from Church’s; the best pair of smart shoes a person could own. He does the stealth-wealth thing, too, taking to the touchline in cashmere bombers and foul weather field jackets by Brunello Cucinelli.
Yes, the clothes are expensive, and they represent a sharp contrast in fortune between the people that do the game and the people that watch the game, but a match is Parker’s big moment. Should we blame him for dressing up for it? No, that’s just mean.
In what may come as bad news to those who don’t like stripes on a football manager’s sleeve, Thom Browne has been gradually outfitting more and more ‘macho’ celebrities in skirts – skirts! – over the past couple of years. NBA star Russell Westbrook is a big fan, as is actor Oscar Isaac, and David Harbour – a man best known for playing a curmudgeonly police officer – is even in the Thom Browne campaign. Not a trouser leg in sight! Therefore the natural end to this saga is touchline skirting, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
