Poor choice of kit from Hull at the weekend – anyone notice that the club had to borrow old pairs of Newcastle’s away shorts and socks to avoid a colour clash in their clash at St James Park? It was on the cards though – Hull’s away kit is all grey, there was bound to be at least one issue playing against a club who wear black and white!
THE FOOTBALL KIT HISTORY SITE
eh doesn’t that spell trouble for pool as well? Unless they use the home or euro shorts for such clashes?
presume u mean liverpool choice of kit away to hull.. their grey kit wont clash with hulls amber and orange though i wouldnt expect.
Personally I can’t see there being a problem with Liverpool’s home kit away to Hull this year, and I am a referee.
Liverpool’s home kit won’t clash with Hull
Missing the point here lads! shaun is talking about an away match vs Newcastle. If Hull had problem wearing all grey at Newcastle, Liverpool will have problems as well seen as their away kit is all grey. Presume that Liverpool will either use 3rd/euro 2nd kit or do combo of bits of kits.
Side issue here. Didn’t Newcastle wear an all grey away kit in the past? I will check inside the book later.
Surely Liverpool will wear their RED kit which doesn’t clash with the Toon’s stripes? Just because a club is the away team doesn’t mean it wears an away kit… 😉
I know Liverppol should wear red, but sometimes logic and common sense disappears in the world of football(re:FIFA’s rules over kits). Premier League rules mean that teams can only wear kits a certain number of times. I do not know if this applies to home kits though.
Matches where BOTH teams end up wearing their away kit when they could have easily worn their home ones really stupify me. Spain V Russia at Euro 2008…Spain in Gold, Russia in Red!?!?.
Does the EPL really have rules stating a kit must be worn a certain number of times? Why?
In fairness to UEFA, Russia do like the wear their red kit where possible and in that match had a choice as the designated ‘home’ team.
This might sound quite tragic, but I must admit that, in an era when every single club seems to bring out a third kit, it brought a tear to my eye to see Hull valiantly wearing a “mashup” strip. Memories of QPR vs. Middlesbrough and their “let’s borrow some orange tops to go with our red shorts” attire from 1982/1983?
On a similar note, while most clubs now appear to have three kits ready long before the start of the season, when was (or maybe it is still the case) the last time a club had to hurriedly design a “one-off” third strip when they realized that there was to be a clash of kits? My own personal recollection was when Rangers drew Grasshoppers Zurich in the Champions League circa 1995/96. Realizing that both their home strip (blue) and their away strip (white) would clash with the Swiss club’s blue and white stripes, Rangers decided to wear a red shirt/black shorts combination for their away game, a strip that was never seen again. Even as recently as thirteen years ago, the club never saw the potential for extra sales revenue.
First game of 98-99, Chelsea ended up wearing their yellow training kit away to Coventry after a mix-up. Amazingly a similar thing happened a year or two before and Chelsea wore Coventry’s away
I remember that. They’d only brought their home strip and arrogantly insisted Coventry wear their away kit. They weren’t too happy having to wear the opposition’s kit…well bring your away one next time!
All this reminds me of the game several years ago when Sheff Wed’s first, second, and third kits all clashed with Newcastle’s home kit. Didn’t they end up wearing Newcastles away kit?
It was Sept 1993, Sheff Wed only brought their white away shirt, which came with yellow shorts. The referee said it clashed with home black and white Newcastle shirt, which resulted in the toon wearing the all blue away kit. Helped us to a resounding 4-2 win.
Also regarding the Newcastle v Hull game, Hulll actually wore the old Newcastle away (white with green stripes) shorts and socks. Interestingly these wore worn inside out I guess so the stripes could hardly be made out.
They only brought the white away shirt beacuse the blue and white striped home shirt would have clashed, also the third kit was from memory, Black with a Yellow pinstripe which again would have clashed. Shortly after this I seem to remember a 4th kit which was Yellow with a Purple pinstripe which had they had it for the Newcastle game would have been OK.
You’re almost right Mark – my understanding was that the white shirt was their 3rd choice but then a 4th kit of yellow with black trim was introduced and was worn against against Wimbledon later that season in the Coca Cola Cup. Strangely enough – just like Newcastle, Wimbledon also ended up wearing their away kit in that match although I suspect that may have had something to do with their navy kit clashing with the ref’s all-black. Back in those days it was only the Premiership that had abolished all-black ref’s kits – the rest of the league still used them.
Yeah, Wimbledon used to wear red in the cups in the mid-90s, I remember them wearing it at home to Man U in 94 when Utd wore the green and yellow.
That yellow Wednesday fourth kit was plain, and the yellow with purple pinstripes was a subsequent away, I think
Re: 18 Denis Hurley
Wimbledon were only allowed to wear their Navy home strip in the Premier League as the referees were in green that first year, (in previous years The Dons strip was royal blue with yellow trim) but as you say in the FA and League Cup had to change.
They even changed to white shirts and black shorts for one game v Tottenham, so they had to change as well.
I’m a bit surprised at Hull City’s choice of change kit, the only fixture in the Prem that they needed to change kit was going to be Newcastle away, and with Newcastle’s kit being predominantly black, it was always going to cause problems.
I’m not sure why they didn’t wear last season’s Umbro home shirt for that match – after all it was plain amber and had the same sponsor. Even last season’s all-white away kit would have been distinguishable given Newcastle’s shirt only had white stripes on the front. I’m surprised the referee let the game go on even with Hull borrowing Newcastle’s shorts and socks because it was still hard to distinguish (watching the highlights on MOTD was a nightmare). In truth Hull should have been forced to borrow shirts from Newcastle as well.
On the subject of kit clash issues, anyone remember Crystal Palace v Reading a few seasons back? Palace had a kit which was plain blue on the back, but Reading, instead of wearing their all-white third kit, decided to wear their home shirt (with plain blue back) with white shorts and socks – it was a nightmare to watch on TV (it was live on Sky), how the referee let that one play on I really don’t know.
It’s not the worst case of kit clashing I’ve ever seen however, there was a well-documented case in the Mexican league a few years ago, where kit clashing seems to be too common.
Oh yeah I remember that Newcastle v Sheffield Wednesday game from 1993 very well. I recall at the time that Wednesday had turned up with two sets of shirts – their usual away shirt of black with yellow pinstripes and a third shirt of white with black pinstripes, along with yellow shorts.
The referee wasn’t happy with either shirt so he had no option but to force Newcastle to wear blue. Funnily enough Newcastle won the game, and thinking about it, they could have worn their purple away kit at home against Hull and could have had the same good fortune!
Anyhow I also know that abroad it is quite common to see the home team wear a change kit in the event of a clash, and in European competition it often occurs – and yes Newcastle did wear an away kit at home in the Champions League and even that caused a bizarre kit clash when they faced Juventus in that odd silver/greeny-navy Ajax style concoction.
Ah yes that Newcastle away kit, navy and grey, SO different from the home, only worn away to WBA in the Prem if I remember.
If I’d been in charge, I’d have said for Newcastle to wear their away and then, when they meet later in the season, Hull to change (to a distinguishable kit) as punishment.
Something similar happened in the NFL a few years ago, early in the season teams often wear white at home due to the high temperatures and (I think) the Denver Broncos ‘forgot’ and only brought their white uniforms to an away game, but were forced to change the following year when they played the same team, can’t remember who, at home.
What was that Mexican clash John? Was it as bad as the Cork and Armagh Gaelic football game I showed you pics of?
http://www.inpho.ie/fotoweb/search-results.fwx?SF_FIELD1=cork+and+armagh+and+2007&folderid=5005&SF_GROUP1_BOOLEAN=and&SF_FIELD1_GROUP=1&SF_GROUP2_BOOLEAN=and&SF_FIELD2_GROUP=2&SF_GROUP2_FIELD=IPTC020&SF_FIELD1_MATCHTYPE=all&SF_FIELD2=&SF_GROUP3_BOOLEAN=and&SF_FIELD3_GROUP=3&SF_GROUP3_FIELD=IPTC020&SF_FIELD3=&x=0&y=0#
1. #20 Jon you are right, Hull could have used last year’s home/away kits, no problem. Although it is harsh to criticise the choice of away kit colour as it was made before the end of last season when Hull did not know who they would play.
2. As I said before I think the number of times a team can wear their away kit is limited over a season(I read this somewhere earlier this season), so Newcastle changing to their away kit could have caused problems later in a wider league sense.
3. #22 Denis sounds a very likely story to me but I cannot remember it myself re:Denver Broncos.
The basic rule in the NFL is coloured uniform=home, white uniform=away. Some teams have traditionally worn white at home-Dallas, Washington & Miami. Others chose to wear white early in the season due to the local climate being ‘subtropical’/hot-Jacksonville, Houston, New Orleans, Tampa Bay, Carolina and others in the past. In ALL cases wearing white at home has to be decided and agreed upon either a)with the league office before the season starts so opponents are informed or b)with opponents BEFORE each match. This rule can leave teams switching between uniforms during home matches.
Hello Denis – it wasn’t actually me that left that last comment – it was ‘Jon’ – another very welcome contributor to the site. Actually I recommend every one check out the link Denis posted above – you simply will not believe the colour clashes that occur in Gaelic football quite unbelievable. Apparently its all due to pride, thats right isn’t it Denis? A team is seen to lose face if they wear anything other than their home strip.
Hello Jon, on the subject of the Palace/Reading game – I don’t remember that one in particular but I do get particularly irritated by backs of shirts that are completely different to the fronts. Of course it predominantly occurs with stripes/hooped jerseys but I hate watching a player who when he turns round looks like he’s playing for another side. Nonsense! All to do with clarity for names and numbers isn’t it?
I think the FA and Premier League should appoint someone (me preferably!) to decide what kits are worn in each match and to ensure that before new kits are designed that sensible and practical colour choices are made for each season. Plus third kits should only be worn when both the home and away strips do not provide adequate colour differentiation. Then everyone will know where they stand!
ie. in the NFL one team wears white/light and the other a coloured/dark uniform.
I say ‘light’ because colours such as silver, light grey, gold etc. are not often used or worn but do exist, so need to be accounted for.
As you can see the NFL (and most other sports in America) were way ahead of UEFA and FIFA in this respect.
Denis, Amir – thats really interesting about the NFL rules. Of course that was always the rule (as far as I am aware) in the early days of the Football League. Away shirts were simply white – I don’t think ‘official’ away shirts as we know them now arrived until quite a way into the League’s formation.
The dark/light contrast between “uniforms” has been common in many US sports, not just NFL but also NBA and NHL, which of course resolves any clashing issues. Even the MLS had a rule in place until 2003 when they allowed a pre-Beckham era LA Galaxy to have a yellow home and white away kit. Of course that seems to have backfired given FC Dallas and Chivas USA’s choice of home/away kits, which has caused some bad cases of kit clashing this season.
Moving back closer to home, I guess I may have been harsh about Hull’s choice of away kit, as I recall now that they revealed it before they got promoted in the play-off final – thus if they hadn’t got promoted the kit would have been used more often. But it is quite folly to choose a colour for a change kit which is too similar to a colour which is quite prominent on the home kit.
I know when Hull wore Diadora kits they quite bizarrely had a black away kit with amber trim, when the home kit was amber/black stripes, but they had a sky blue third kit as well. However this season they haven’t designated a third kit, which, even in today’s market-driven replica shirt age is a rare thing.
I remember that outing of that silver Newcastle kit at West Brom too Denis, terrible kit clash as well given West Brom’s kit was based on their classic 60’s shirt with plain white sleeves. Which reminds me, come to think of the subject of teams in the Prem wearing an away kit at home, I now recall Fulham wore black at home to… yes, wait for it, Newcastle, who turned up in another silver kit in the 03/04 season!
Hi John, yes this number/names clarity nonsense is ruining a lot of kits for teams who wear stripes, hoops or halves. UEFA are mostly to blame for enforcing it in Champions League and UEFA Cup competition, and even FIFA seem to have taken it on board for the World Cup. I can understand a number patch on contrasting stripes – after all Newcastle wore a white patch with a red number on for a long time prior to 1993, but for dark coloured stripes (e.g. Barça) it really doesn’t make any sense at all.
Some kit manufacturers such as Nike and Puma have ruined many traditional kits with this rule in mind, going as far as putting a plain back on the kit to also make the name “clear to see”. Imagine my horror at seeing Celtic’s kit being totally spoilt in Champions League play, considering before 1994 they never wore numbers on the hoops at all.
Anyhow I noticed Reading have yet another kit from Puma which looks totally different on the back than the front… it’s blue and white hoops on the front, but plain white on the back with blue at the bottom and the sides. I just don’t get it.
I seem to remember seeing a photo of a light blue Hull 3rd kit for 08/09 season somewhere, but I might be just my imagination.(light blue with black trim and a touch of amber-sounds like Wolves to me)
Interesting thing about the NHL was that the light/dark uniform rule was changed a couple of years back so that the home team now worn their ‘dark’ uniform at home(excepting the few games where they had been approved to wear their 3rd shirt).
The rule in MLB is a bit more subtle as white=home and grey=away, not much of a difference there. So in addition the nickname is used on the home and the city name on the away(some teams make other changes). This was before the trend for coloured baseball jerseys that are used instead of grey sometimes.
Imagine your team having two different badges for their kits, which is why I say this.
Hello Amir – can you recommend any good sites that feature uniform graphics for the NHL, MLB, NFL etc ? I find this fascinating and would like to discover more. Cheers.
Re the American Football kits. Logically if your home shirt is coloured and your away shirt is White and every team follows this rule there would never ever be a colour clash. Why then in recent years have many teams adopted third kits. eg Orange for Miami Dolphins, Yellow for Pittsburgh and (I think) Red for NY Giants.
On the subject of clashes, did anyone see the highlights of QPR v Derby last Saturday? Derby wore their flouresant away strip which though technically is “vibrant lime-green” shirts with black shorts and socks but the really looks yellow, well Roy Carroll wore Yellow shirt and black shorts. Every time the ball went in the box I had no idea who was who.
Other shockers include Spurs v Blackburn during the 05/06 season, Spurs wore white shirts with navy sides and sleeves, Blackburn wore their home strip of Blue and white!
Another was on the opening weekend of the 02/03 season, Villa v Liverpool, obviously Villa in their usual home strip but Liverpool in black shirts with grey sleeves and shorts, believe me on TV they looked identical.
Yeah I saw that too Andrew, absolutely shocking. How on earth did Derby’s kit manager fail to pick that up? In truth the referee should have forced Carroll into changing his shirt to make him distinguishable.
After all it’s a basic rule that has been in the game for about a century – the goalkeeper has to wear a colour that is distinguishable from the outfield players of both teams.
Mind you in midweek the colour clash and UEFA’s anti-stripes policy meant Inter Milan looked like they had all eleven players wearing black from the back, including the goalkeeper. Again, where was the referee enforcing the rules?
I remember that Spurs v Blackburn game very well, it was live on Sky and I recall Andy Gray complaining about it at the time. The problem was due to Blackburn’s away kit that season, which was black but had a huge grey panel on the back, which, when viewed from behind, looked a bit similar to Spurs’ kit in sunlight. Yet, they ended up wearing that kit at West Brom that season, which was even worse. They should have had a third kit but then-suppliers Lonsdale didn’t supply one.
Liverpool’s black and grey kit, I remember that one very well, to me it was their second worst away kit in their history after the white/green quartered mess of 95/96.
re #31, Mark in 1994 to celebrate 75 years of the league, the NFL allowed teams for 1 week to wear uniforms from their past or more precisely ‘reinventions’ of past designs [NB in brief, NFL rules state that team have to have their uniforms approved before the season starts with no changes during].
Following this teams took the obvious commerial opportunity to wear these (re:Pittsburgh) every season with league approval, usually during Thankgiving weekend games. In recent times teams have worn them or new designs (like Miami) also in nationally televised evening games- most teams are only shown 1-2 times a season, if at all.
If anyone is interested, most of what I know is through actual footage of NFL and googling various combinations of: american, football, uniform, history, NFL
Also wikipedia entries for the teams have some good designs. I’m sure that these lead to some websites as well.
I remember Leeds wearing a hastily made version of the Green and blue shirt that later became the away shirt away at Blackburn in 93-94 I think, it was a ‘one off’ kit until it was commissioned as the away shirt the following season.
Yeah I remember that very well, funnily enough Leeds ditched it midway through the 95/96 season for an all-yellow kit, then wore it for one more game before it got discontinued. I heard rumour that they ditched the kit because it looked really dull in poor lighting and players had trouble picking each other out!
Talking of Hull, I saw highlights of their match at Spurs (complete with amber socks!) and come to think of it, I also think they could have got away with wearing the home kit at Newcastle instead of that charcoal effort.
I think you’re right Jon that Hull could have got away with their home kit – although in one of your earlier comments you mentioned that they should have worn last years amber shirt – that would have been a sensible idea. Isn’t it funny how Newcastle seem to crop up all the time with these kit clash problems!?
Its funny how Sunderland can wear their red/white stripes (option or allowed to?)vs Newcastle, but every other team in stripes seems not to want to wear/not allowed to wear their striped kit.
Also does a plain back to the shirt help in situations like this? I think not in my opinion.
Are the Premier Leagues rules or guidelines for what is acceptable re kit colours – and what constitutes a colour clash for that matter – available anywhere. Some years ago I wrote to the Premier League and the FA re this and never got a reply. It would be interesting to see the official stance.
AFAIlK the kit men contact each other before the game and work out what the best combination would be, seem to remember reading this on the Knowledge on the Guardian site before
A few other things I meant to post:
http://www.weirdwolf.net/FFP/index.htm
John, that’s an American Football uniform history site, hasn’t been updated in five years however.
Mark, NFL third jerseys are just money-spinners, no necessity for them at all.
Amir, it’s rare that an away kit is worn in local derbies, though I do recall Newcastle wearing yellow and green at Sunderland in the early 90s.
The reason baseball can get away with white and grey is that the pitching team only have the pitcher and catcher on the pitch, so little cause for confusion, same as the way there were colour clashes in the cricket world cup.
However, very few baseball teams have only two jerseys now, with protocols such as wearing a particular colour on a given day, eg wearing red for Sunday home games only. Wikipedia is good for info on this, the NY Mets do it differently, though, the starting pitcher decides the uniform!
here is another good NFL one that pretty much takes us to the present (wikipedia can fill the small gap), no graphics though.
http://www.geocities.com/lukoss/nfluniforms.html
for some pictures:
http://www.nfluniformhistory.com/index.html
http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Fall05/brownlee/index.html
this one is to do with the 1994 throwback week/season I talked about in #34:
http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Stadium/3028/index.html
Very true about the baseball there, Denis.
The evolution of colours in cricket is more interesting. It was before my time but did not every team have a different colour when teams started to wear coloured uniforms? (Packer era) Obviously it was a little easier then with only 6 test nations playing. I think the only clash would be between England and India over their blues.
here are a couple for the ice hockey teams:
http://www.nhluniforms.com/
http://whauniforms.com/
The Referee has the final say on weyher their is a clash or not, all to often though they seem to ignore the keepers strip these days.
Also you often see games where teams where the same coloured shorts. I remember in the 70’s and 80’s Forest and Everton almost always changed their white shorts for away games and reverted to all red and all blue.
Yeah the “clash of shorts” still occurs, though its more of a recommendation rather than a rule which is left to the discretion of the referee. It tends to occur a lot when Arsenal are playing away, because of their insistence not to wear anything other than white shorts with the home shirt. Very rarely do we see a clash of socks these days, despite it being a common occurrence in the past.
I also recall in the past Forest sometimes wore an all-red kit away from home even if the home side weren’t wearing white shorts – probably a homage to the back-to-back European Cup winning sides of 1979 and 1980 when they wore red shorts with the home kit.
It is ultimately up to the referee if there is a clashing issue, but I agree with Andrew on the subject of keeper kits getting ignored sometimes – it was never a problem when I was a kid when almost all keepers wore green! I recall earlier this season Julián Speroni of Crystal Palace was set to wear an all black kit against Swansea’s off-navy change kit, but the referee wasn’t happy and forced a change – after searching through the club shop and the kit room they eventually found a gold shirt for him. He played such a blinder that Neil Warnock told him to keep wearing gold! Obviously it wasn’t going to work because the next game was Wolves, so he had to revert to the black shirt again!
It is annoying though when you sometimes see goalies wearing a colour too similar to the outfield players, e.g. a black jersey against a team in navy. I recall a famous incident from Sweden as well a few years ago when, in the Stockholm derby, AIK (who play in black with yellow trim) looked like they had 12 outfield players on the pitch when viewed from behind as both their keeper and the Djurgården keeper wore the same style jersey which was yellow on the front, but black on the back! Madness!
Re shorts clashing, it’s not considered essential, whereas shirts are, for obvious reasons, while socks must be different to held linesmen differentiate with offside
Thanks for those links Amir & Denis – I have to say, I’m now hooked on American sports uniforms – as if I didn’t have enough to be obsessed about! I’m interested in the idea of retro kits being worn for special occasions.
There’s never been a hard and fast rule regarding stripes clashing. If you look back in time you will sometimes see Sunderland wearing an away kit when playing Newcastle and sometimes sporting red and white. I believe the Sheffield derby has also seen the teams wearing change colours from time to time. I guess its all up to interpretation at the time.
Interesting message Jon, I too remember Forest often turning out in a Liverpool-like all red in the late 70s – even when there was no shorts clash. If you look back to the 70s and 80s in Scotland there was (and in many cases still is) short clashes every weekend. Actually, come to I could never make out why Celtic and Hibernian didn’t change strips more when they played each other. Too much green and white!
Talking of donning an all-red kit despite there being no shorts/socks clash, anyone remember 1986, when Southampton, who that season wore a plain red shirt with white on the shoulders (no stripes!), went to Everton in an all red kit to fool them into thinking they were playing Liverpool, and then get tonked something like 6-0? See it doesn’t always work!
Celtic v Hibs used to be a nightmare to watch because of both teams wearing their home kits, yet they did it for decades. I think there were a few rare occasions during the 70′ and 80’s where Celtic wore an away kit for the fixture but Hibs rarely did, if not ever.
If I recall, 91/92 was the last time there was a clash when Celtic turned up twice at Easter Road in their home kit, due to the fact that their away kit was the awful mint/forest green combination which often makes an appearance in worst ever kit polls. They wore the mint green socks too due to Hibs wearing white socks.
From 92/93 onwards common sense had finally prevailed and away kits were in use by both teams. However between 2006 and 2008 Celtic decided to wear their green and black striped kit at Hibs which caused problems, particularly as last season Celtic had three, yes, THREE kits where green featured heavily!
I remember a game in October 2003 where Newcastle turned up to play fulham with a silver strip and referee Barry Knight made Fulham wear their Black Puma away kit as the colours were too close.
Something I noticed today – three Premier League games, Man U v West Brom, Fulham v Sunderland and Bolton v Blackburn, featured teams with the same colour shorts.
I just don’t understand that at all! It seems like the rule about short clashes has gone out of the window now as well. It must be solely down to the ref’s decision but it goes against the rumours that FIFA/UEFA were really getting stricter on colour clashes.
Incidentally, look at my blog later today for an interesting snippet on colour clashes in the past…
I didn’t have much trouble distinguishing Sunderland from Fulham however when I watched the highlights on MOTD, though in most instances whenever a team who normally play in red and white stripes play at a team who wear white, they wear an away strip.
What is strange is this – yesterday, and indeed in last season’s corresponding fixture, Sunderland wore their usual home kit with black shorts, but at Derby last season, they wore the home kit with white shorts. They even had a blue third kit which didn’t get used in the Premier League when it could have had a few outings.
It does make you wonder what referees and teams’ kit managers have going through their mind. One that has always baffled me is that whenever Newcastle played Sheffield Wednesday, they’d wear their away kit, but against Blackburn or QPR, they’d wear their home kit, yet all opponents wear blue and white (just different styles)?
Kit clashes are strange. Newcastle went to Coventry last month in purple when the home kit would have been better. Change shorts and socks of white were worn with the purple to avoid a clash! Away kits in derbies are rare when not necessary but Newcastle wore yellow at Sunderland in the early 90’s, and blue in 1996, 2002 and last season. Purple tomorrow I’m guessing.
John, just noticed one thing in the 08-09 kits – you’ve included a pair of yellow change shorts with the Bolton away kit, but they wore white shorts away to Spurs on Saturday.
Yes – it was a surprise wasn’t it? Don’t often see yellow and white together like that – I took an educated guess that they would wear yellow change shorts. I’ll update it. Observant as ever Denis!
Cheers.
Yellow shirts with white shorts looks awful – I recall Arsenal doing it away to Southampton and Sunderland in the adidas days, as well as away to Barcelona in 1999.
Aston Villa-Blackburn also featured both teams in white shorts too by the way
I agree yellow shirts with white shorts does look odd, though fans of the Thai national team and IFK Malmö would disagree!
Anyway mention of Newcastle wearing away kits for derbies with Sunderland reminds me of the time when the Football League appeared to have a strict policy regarding kit clashing and use of away kits around about the late 80’s early 90’s. Even having a small amount of secondary colour in a kit was deemed as being enough to force the away team to change strip.
I remember Villa’s classic Hummel kit based on the Danish kit of 1986 causing many problems in the eyes of officials, to the point where the likes of Birmingham and Liverpool had to turn up in previous season away kits as a one-off measure. Even more curious was Norwich City’s Asics home kit of 1989-1992, which had small green diagonal stripes on the front at the top, which resulted in many goalkeepers having to wear anything other than their usual green shirts!
Returning to Newcastle, I remember them changing sometimes for the Tyne-Wear derby, though they didn’t last week however, but are there any derbies in the English league where the away side regularly changes kit?
I didn’t realise that Norwich kit caused so many problems. I remember the Villa Hummel kit well. Most people seemed to hate those halved shirts (Southampton and Coventry wore them as well) but I really liked them – not very traditional though.
The kit Liverpool wore that time was in fact a one-off white version of their 88-90 kit, only worn in that game!
Good call on the Norwich kit, I remember being surprised seeing David Seaman wearing blue when Arsenal played them.
Liverpool did wear a one-off white version of the home kit at Villa in the 88/89 season as you said Denis – this was also featured in True Colours 1.
What I meant to say in my last post was that it was the 87/88 season in which Liverpool wore their previous away shirt – for the FA Cup 4th round tie at Villa on 31st January 1988, complete with the previous classic badge with just the Liver bird and “LFC” on it, with red shorts and socks.
And even more surprising with Norwich’s Asics kit, on some occasions Bryan Gunn (Norwich goalkeeper) used to wear a green jersey! And come to think of it, I recall a couple of occasions when Coventry’s away kit (identical to Norwich’s home, but with black stripes instead of yellow) forced a keeper to change from green to another colour. How bizarre is that?
Very interesting Jon, didn’t realise they wore the white in 88!
It’ll be interesting to see what Hull will wear at Newcastle this time around when they play in the FA Cup third round replay. I wonder if Hull will dig out last season’s kits for the match, or wear the home kit with different coloured shorts/socks, or maybe even commission a special third kit?
Who knows? I can’t see them wearing that grey kit again.
Ha! Yes, you’re right Jon – most supporters will be keen to see who goes through – not us football kit fanatics though! We just want to know what shorts Hull will wear!
I’ve just had a peek on Football Shirt Culture and there’s a news article about Hull City having to find a third kit to use in the replay to avoid a repeat of the clashing problem from the league fixture. Apparently Umbro are working on a third kit in time for the replay on 14th January, though no details are available yet on the style and colour of the kit.
I’d take an estimated guess that the third kit will be sky blue, given that Hull have used the colour for a change strip on numerous occasions in the past. There was talk that the white strip from last season was retained, but apparently it was ditched because of all-white being synonymous with a certain Leeds United.
I don’t know why they just don’t wear last season’s plain amber home shirt, surely they’ve got enough spare stock for just one match?
Nice one Jon, solves the mystery we’ve all been wondering about! I’ve posted the link here:
http://www.footballshirtculture.com/200901082016/08/09-kits/hull-city-must-find-a-3rd-kit.html
The blue you’ve suggested is a fair shout but I’d like to see the amber back for one more match as well.
Well according to someone on that site it looks like Hull are going to reintroduce that white away kit from last season.
A peculiar choice given Newcastle have white stripes but at least they are distinguishable from the Toon’s predominantly black jersey though.
Indeed Hull are wearing last season’s white away kit tonight… now if only they’d thought of that back in September!
Forgot to mention that there’s still a kit clash – namely the choice of kit from the referee, who for some bizarre reason is wearing a black kit with white trim on it, which completely clashes with Newcastle’s home kit!
Its a good looking kit isn’t it – although I still think all amber shirts would have made a better choice. Weird that the ref didn’t change – whatever happened to the coloured ref shirts that were introduced when the Premiership arrived?
Well, the referee in the Southend v Chelsea game wore a pale green shirt, as black would have clashed with Southend’s navy, so why the ref didn’t do the same at Newcastle I really do now know.
Even down in League Two the nonsense of striped kits having plain backs is causing great problems. Tonight for instance Port Vale, whose black and white striped shirts have a white back, faced Lincoln City, wearing a curious white away kit.
I say curious because Lincoln’s home shirt is their usual red and white stripes, but with a plain white back. I saw the highlights on Sky Sports News and how the referee let it go ahead only he could tell us, a ridiculous clash. Lincoln do have a third kit, which is gold and navy halves, so in truth they should have worn that.
It isn’t the first time Port Vale’s kit has been involved in a bad colour clash this season. For some bizarre reason they wore the home strip at Bury, when in the past they’ve normally worn an away kit.
Crazy!
I’d really like to get to the bottom of some of this kit clash/striped-plain shirt issues. I’m going to try and get an interview with a kit man or two. Apart from being possibly an interesting feature it would be good to find out from the horse’s mouth what the situation is.
It’s mad isn’t it? How the referees in those games let it go by I don’t know, yet just a few weeks ago of course we had the story about Brighton having to borrow a set of shirts from Leicester.
The referee felt Brighton’s navy and yellow striped kit clashed with Leicester’s blue, so he forced the change. Why Brighton didn’t wear their all-white fourth kit is another curiosity, but even more baffling is that they wore the navy and yellow kit at Oldham and that was passed as OK.
Talk about inconsistent!
But nothing is as bad as this one from Mexico in 2002, Guadalajara versus Necaxa, and no doubt a myopic referee…
http://mx.geocities.com/chivasrayadasno1/chivasnecaxa2003-1.jpg
Necaxa that season had a stupid choice of kits, the home was their traditional red and white stripes (but mostly white), and the away was white with red sleeves, but the red single stripe on the front gave the effect of broad stripes, and no third kit. Thankfully a few seasons later they finally decided on a change kit which wasn’t predominantly red or white.
That Mexico game is a classic Jon! I know I keep harping on about it, but shirts have to be functional don’t they? They have to do their job!
Last night, Hull City played at Fulham in their grey away / changed strip. Why?. How can Fulham’s white shirts clash with amber & black stripes?
It’s a real oddity as to why Hull wore the grey away kit the other night.
Anyway Lincoln City were involved in another kit clash at the weekend, this time at rivals Grimsby Town. It was exactly the same problem that the Imps had at Port Vale, by wearing the rather superfluous white away kit against Grimsby’s shirts which are plain white on the back (apart from black sleeves). And again how did the referee let that one go by?
Funny how we mentioned the USA and their old tradition of one light and one dark shirt to avoid colour clashes and make them distinguishable on television. Well I’ve found proof that the MLS’s decision to abolish the age-old tradition has certainly backfired!
Take this, from FC Dallas v Chicago Fire the other day…
http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/8462/85548970.jpg
It’s bad for two reasons – one, the most obvious, the plain white back on Dallas’ shirt, and secondly, for me a red and white hooped shirt against a white shirt with a red band is a clash. Even more shocking is that FC Dallas have an away kit which resembles an old adidas QPR shirt from the 80’s, blue and white hoops with 3 adidas stripes in red, but also a plain white back! Worse, the replica Dallas shirts have the hoops on the back!
This plain back nonsense just gets worse!
Ouch…nice spot Jon. Different coloured backs on the shirts are just plain daft aren’t they? Reminds me again of the Scotland/All Blacks rugby match last year (I think) where the All Blacks changed to grey with a massive black panel on the shoulders. Scotland’s home kit was of course navy with loads of white. It was a nightmare to watch!
Yeah I remember that, it was really difficult to watch on TV. It wasn’t the worst kit clash I’d ever seen in rugby though, seen plenty in rugby league over the years.
Here’s another shocker for the collection – Busan I’Park from South Korea taking on Chivas, and another colourblind ref…
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1047/751998544_62d503b37c.jpg
Busan have got quite possibly the most disfunctional away kit ever. Their home kit is red and white quarters with a plain red back and sleeves, but the away is also red and white quarters, but with a plain white back and sleeves.
Chivas, as previously mentioned in the comments are no strangers to bad kit clashing, here’s two instances of games between them and Tecos UAG from 2007 and 2008…
http://i.esmas.com/image/0/000/005/997/TECOS-CHIVAS-370×270.jpg
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__Zf3dVKYww0/SJW91SfFXUI/AAAAAAAAApI/MCqPyjkn3gM/s400/tecos_chivas3.jpg
Oh dear!
Hello Pete M – it seems reading through this feature that most people prefer away kits to be used only when necessary, and third kits only when really really necessary – I certainly do. I’m guessing the reason why Hull changed is due to the shorts clashing with Fulham’s but also, as we’ve seen in this thread, short clashes rules aren’t consistent either and if a club don’t favour change shorts (such as Liverpool, Arsenal) then an away kit has to be donned.
i really hate the recent habit of kits with different front and backs, ie newcastle black and white front, plain black back, reading blue white front & all-blue back etc. its ridiculous. how do clowns who design jerseys, or uefa who make colour clashing rules, think jerseys being different on the front and back is a good idea. its really really a pet hate of mine.
rant over.
I know what you mean Anto, I’m not a fan of that either. Looks like a different team when they turn round!