A new logo always comes with sticker shock. I’m old enough to remember when Slovan’s new logo was but the latest confirmation of football becoming “too corporate, too soulless”, or when Sparta’s new logo marked too stark a departure from tradition; now both commonly feature near the top of many neutrals’ rankings. A new logo also tends to invite comparisons. FK Jablonec, changing their identity just before FK Pardubice, learnt that the hard way — though at least you can see why some drew parallels with Lesy ČR, the state-owned forestry company, seeing as both are built around fucking trees. What does it say about the new FK Pardubice logo, then, that most see Pinterest or the country’s largest health insurer (VZP), while the nerds swear it’s lifted straight from an Albanian tabloid?

When FK Pardubice announced their RESTART last summer, this is most certainly not what they had in mind. Gone is the main sponsor after which the arena was named, head coach, sporting director, technical director/director of recruitment and chairman from that time; though in the case of the latter, Vít Zavřel — promoted in his place — insists Vladimír Pitter still “works the same way he used to”, whatever the hell that means. Granted, the initiative rather targeted a shift in visual identity or fan engagement, but even on that front, “maybe the font has changed” was one of my consultant’s sarcastic response. Most notably on the fan engagement side, the club has succeeded in uniting all the fans against itself.