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Chris Wright, Toe Poke writer
Not content with having just three kits for the 2024-25 season, Premier League champions Manchester City have laid on a fourth jersey which just so happens to have been designed in collaboration with one of the club’s most ardent celebrity fans.
The special edition “Definitely City” shirt was co-created by Noel Gallagher to mark the 30th anniversary of his band’s seminal debut album, “Definitely Maybe,” and is specifically inspired by the album’s cover art.
Released in 1994, the “Definitely Maybe” cover featured the original Oasis lineup lounging around at then-guitarist Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs’ house in Manchester.
The room is scattered with items of personal significance to the group including portraits of City legend Rodney Marsh, George Best and singer-songwriter Burt Bacharach — one of Gallagher’s musical heroes.
The kit launch coincides with the much-anticipated reunion of Britpop giants Oasis, which made headlines this summer firstly for the band ending its 15-year hiatus and then for the server-crashing demand for tickets.
The City fourth shirt shares the same colour palette and washed-out tones of the “Definitely Maybe” cover, with the design deploying the light straw yellow, cool greyish blues and chalky pinks of the record sleeve.
The “halo” around the club crest also mirrors the large globe that hangs in the upper right corner of the album art.
To help launch the fourth kit, City created a special set and then had players Éderson, Mateo Kovacic, Jess Park and Kyle Walker join a guitar-wielding Pep Guardiola to faithfully re-create the “Definitely Maybe” cover.
It has been confirmed that City intend to wear the kit for the first time on Wednesday when they welcome Inter Milan to the Etihad Stadium in the Champions League, and it will then be sported in selected European away games.
Gallagher also helped design the accompanying clothing collection, which includes a tracksuit, bomber jacket, overshirt and training top.
He said: “I loved City before anything, I was into City before I was into music, I was into City before I knew what music was.”
This isn’t the first kit-centric collaboration between Gallagher and City either; he also produced the custom hand-written font that will be used for names and numbers on the shirts of the men’s team in the Champions League and domestic cup fixtures this season.