Irish football club Bohemians unveil new Bob Marley-themed away kit
The team's Dalymount Park stadium was the site of Marley's final ever outdoor show
By Joe Goggins
Irish football club Bohemians have shared images of their new away kit, which features the face of Bob Marley.
The new shirt is intended to commemorate the reggae icon’s final-ever outdoor concert, which took place at the Dublin side’s Dalymount Park stadium in 1980. The white jersey, which features a red, yellow and green trim and the laughing face of Marley, has the blessing of his family, who were involved in its design.
Daniel Lambert, Bohemians COO, said as the shirt was unveiled: “It brings me enormous joy to unveil this jersey today following years of work on the idea. The Marley concert at Dalymount is one of Ireland’s truly special musical events, his only ever Irish show and, sadly, his last ever outdoor one.”
“His love of football is widely known to all,” Lambert continued, “and that he played on our famous pitch before the concert, the same turf that some of the world’s best players have graced such as Pelé, [George] Best and [Zinedine] Zidane is amazing.”
Pat Egan, who promoted Marley’s Dalymount show, added: “I think this is a brilliant thing in terms of the memories of the day, the first major worldwide star to play an open air gig in Ireland. It will be an iconic shirt and help keep the Marley legend alive and well on our island. The day itself, to see him on stage in the stadium, with the huge church steeple in the background was out of this world.”
The shirt can be pre-ordered here. 10 per cent of the proceeds will go towards providing musical instruments and football kits to asylum centres in Ireland, as part of Bohemians’ partnership with Movement of Asylum Seekers in Ireland. It represents the second unusual away top for Bohemians in as many years; their current change strip is sponsored by Dublin punks Fontaines D.C., with 15 per cent of profits going to homelessness charity Focus Ireland.
At the time of that kit’s launch, Lambert said of it to the Irish Times: “The jersey has a real homage to Dublin on it. “It features the Poolbeg towers, the Grattan Bridge lamps. On the back it has ‘Beware of the risen people’. We took a tracing of that. It’s what Pearse wrote in the cell in Kilmainham. ’Dublin in the rain is mine’ is on the inside collar, that’s one of [the band’s] lyrics.”