That is an absolute belter. I remember the consensual on-the-spot assessment of the new Celtic home kit in the final days of April some 21 years ago clear as day.

There weren't many real-world events that yielded the power to pause our typically fierce games of two-a-side cuppy on the grass opposite the housing scheme swing park we spent every waking hour of the school holidays hanging around in.

Diana's passing, 9/11, the introduction of the Euro currency, these were all cultural touchstones at the turn of the millennium that were marked by someone reading them aloud from the single surplus newspaper that mysteriously failed to get delivered during my friend's deliveries every day.

In times before round-the-clock news and smartphones, we expressed sadness, surprise, shock and awe at each one in turn, yet nothing halted our heated jumpers-for-goalposts encounters like the reveal of a new football kit.

And this one was, indeed, a belter.

Huddled around a copy of the Evening Times, we spied Didier Agathe, and (I think) Chris Sutton standing trackside at Celtic Park wearing the Umbro-manufactured hoops with then new sponsor Carling emblazoned on the front, grandfather collar and all.

It was a sight to behold. Even the Rangers fans among us admitted it was "not bad, given it's the same every other year".

For Celtic fans, though, this wasn't every other year. It was 2003, and Martin O'Neill's men had dismissed Liverpool from the UEFA Cup a few weeks prior, courtesy of goals from Alan Thompson and a John Hartson wonder-strike at Anfield.

Celtic had then been held to a less flattering 1-1 draw against Portuguese outfit Boavista at Parkhead shortly after, but an outstretched Henrik Larsson had poked the ball home on 78 minutes in the return leg to send his side rocketing into the competition's final in Seville just over a month down the line.

This home kit would be the one they'd take to Spain and lift the UEFA Cup in, I thought.

I was wrong, of course, but the memory of first discovering the attire my heroes would wear on what is still the concurrent best and worst night of my football-supporting days some two decades later is nevertheless among my favourites in life, not just football.

Nowadays, it's different. Nowadays, kits launch every single season. They cost upwards of £70 and there are at least three, sometimes four and occasionally more.

In a fervent bid to be perceivably 'in the know' (or ITK as the chronically online better know it), leaks and would-be concepts fill every facet of internet fan spaces on the road to release, and undercover stock room snaps hit social media weeks, sometimes months, before even a sniff of official unveilings.

When new kits are finally officially teased – on social platforms first, of course – everyone and their granny already knows exactly what they look like.

Ultimately, the ceremony, spectacle, and indeed ritual of any new football kit reveal has suffered as a result of the ever-pervasive ubiquitous leak culture that persists today.

This extends well beyond football kit announcements, and I'm well-aware my memories are tainted by misty-eyed nostalgia.

I turned 17 the night Larsson scored in Portugal. I paid three-hundred-and-seventy-five quid for a UEFA Cup final ticket from some new-fangled digital marketplace website named eBay.

I missed my fifth-year maths exam for Seville, and I queued up at midnight at the Celtic Superstore to pick up that very Sutton and Agathe-modelled home top.

I first heard whispers of a 'Black Magic' away kit that was due the following season while waiting outside the stadium that night. And I spent my first wage as an apprentice plumber months later buying that very top from that very same bricks and mortar shop.

Listen, I'm pining for a time that no longer exists, I get that. Now pushing 40, the world is a different place, and how we receive information is unrecognisable compared to how it was then.

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I'm also part of the problem – every time I write about the latest kit leak online I'm clearly perpetuating the very thing I'm using this space to express grievance about. Although my way of justifying this to myself (and my boss) is the numbers with which people flock to read these articles. Deep down I suppose we all want to be ITK. At least a wee bit.

Still, again at the risk of getting misty-eyed, I can't deny being a little bit gutted that my kids won't experience the latest kit launches in the same way I did.

They almost certainly won't huddle round a permanently-borrowed newspaper and marvel at the stars of the day, clapping eyes on the latest strips for the very first time in a two-page spread that can be physically held in both hands.

And, of course, if either my son or daughter choose to follow in their old man's footsteps in career terms, there's a chance they'll be lamenting whatever current means by which folk are consuming media two decades from now in a similarly-framed old-person rant.

If they do, I hope they have their own nostalgia-driven anecdotes. And I hope whatever kit reveal they long for was also an absolute belter.