FEW things in football are quite as divisive as the release of a club’s kit.

Within a few minutes of Wednesday’s reveal, I’d heard the new home shirt described thus: ‘horrific’, ‘simple’, ‘not-horrendous’, ‘smart’, ‘basic’ and – one that brought about a few giggles in the office –‘ looks like it’s got conjunctivitis.’

Well, the sheer breadth of opinion certainly had me rubbing my eyes.

Football has always been tribal, and while the idea of grown adults devoting so much time and energy discussing some red detailing on a piece of material may seem surreal to those outside the game, it really does matter to those who will religiously spend £40-plus to wear their team’s colours every single season.

It is a nervous time for the club, too. An overtly-negative reaction to a kit can really hit sales hard.

I remember being dragged into a crisis meeting at Wanderers after the infamous “sports bra” kit came out in 2008 and asked why we had printed so many letters and emails from fans who hated the shirt. The simple truth was we printed the feedback we got. And I still think whoever gave that design the go-ahead deserves a cuff round the ear.

This year’s design won’t give Richard Gough and his hard-working team nearly as many sleepless nights as his predecessors.

But, as ever, the retail and commercial arm of the club are beholden to the fortunes of the team on the pitch. Win lots of games, and the shirt becomes synonymous with success.

Look back to the early Reebok designs in the nineties – they scream White Hot, but as items of fashion, they were as simple as could be.

One of the club’s best-selling retro shirts is the Normid design, used between 1988 and 1990. Surprisingly – given the aversion to all things red – the away kit does just as well as the traditional home one.

People look back on football shirts as bookmarks in time.

In my youth I used to collect shirts from any team I could lay my hands on. At one point – pre-marriage, I might add – I owned more than 100.

Looking back now I question some of their authenticity. Cheetham Hill market did not seem like the sort of place you should have been able to lay your hands on a neon yellow Borussia Dortmund home shirt.

I still cling on to a smaller selection, including a silver and blue Bolton shirt once worn by Hidetoshi Nakata which has never, and never will, fit me. Perhaps one day one of my boys will be seen flying down the wing wearing a red and white Croatia Euro 96 top with “Boksic 11” on the back?

What I mean to say is that I totally understand the obsession with football kits and why a duff one can really spoil your pre-season.

I’ve been lucky enough to see over the other side of the fence recently, including the design for this season’s away kit and limited edition third kit – which I think will be very well received.

And the wheels will be set in motion this week for next year’s design at Macron Sports’ Italian offices, so anyone who thinks this kind of thing is chucked together at the last moment is sadly mistaken.

It is quite a complex process, born out by the vast number of abandoned versions of the home shirt I saw this week. It was like the famous Ascent of Man picture, with hemlines.

You’ll never please everyone. Some Wanderers fans see even a hint of red and it just brings out a primal displeasure, others, including those of a certain age that saw Ian Greaves’ team in its prime, will remember that Bolton used to carry that colour off quite well.

And dare I mention that way back in 1884, Wanderers’ forefathers, Christchurch FC, ran round in white shirts with red polka dots?

Somewhere there must be an old box of home shirts that remained unsold from that particular season.