Newcastle’s kit is as bad as their form is good

Six wins on the bounce. Tottenham and Manchester City away, Liverpool at home. Eight goals scored, a couple of them really rather special; just the one conceded. A handful of exciting, young footballers playing quick, unpredictable football. And — most importantly — Newcastle's results on the pitch are finally again lining up with Alan Pardew immutable, immovable self-belief.

There is, however, one small problem with Newcastle's resurgence. The kits. Specifically, the third kit, which has been rolled out for the victories over City and West Bromwich Albion. Puma's finest minds have, in their infinite wisdom, bestowed upon Newcastle a half-navy, half-mint green monstrosity that looks as though it was designed by a malevolent and over-indulged child who should have been sent to bed hours ago, and should certainly never be trusted with crayons again. In the flesh — at least, in the flesh on the television — the various green components seem to be slightly different shades, making the side look a bit like they're wearing the front of one revolting shirt, the back of another, and the shorts from a third. Some kits are designed not to clash with jeans. This one clashes with itself.

Let's be clear: this isn't just a bad kit. The Premier League has plenty of those. This is a kit so bad -- so incoherent, so incomprehensible -- that it vanishes out the far side of ugliness and ends up somewhere weirdly compelling. It is, perhaps, the only Premier League shirt this season that can hold its own against the glorious abominations of the mid-1990s: Norwich's bird-spattered special; Chelsea's pebbledashed-and-orange thing; Aston Villa's red-and-black-and-green-and-why-God-why number. Over the last couple of seasons, Warrior have been doing sterling work in the field of change shirt atrocities, but Puma, here, have blown them out of the water. After all, anybody can make something weird by piling on the shapes and splashes of colour. It takes real genius to be this simple, yet this peculiar.

Kits these days come and go, as manufacturers attempt to squeeze every last penny out of their target markets. So something this memorable deserves a special season to go with it. It looked, a few short weeks ago, as though this shirt was going to be the look of the last days of Alan Pardew; as if Newcastle were going to implode into a mint-green mess. A disaster wearing a disaster. Now, with points coming in and confidence riding high, with Sammy Ameobi and Ayoze making the Toon fun again, and with the entire country plagued by inconsistency, there's every chance that this kit could end up associated with something vaguely decent. A deep cup run, perhaps, or a few more notable scalpings. The kit is already unforgettable. So best to make sure the memories are pleasant, even if the present isn't always easy on the eyes.