Until 1991, when the shorts of their away kit would cause a clash with their hosts, Arsenal would wear the white shorts of the home strip.
The yellow-white-yellow look persisted throughout the 1980s and up until the 1990-91 title-winning season, mainly at Southampton and sometimes at Sunderland and Sheffield United – there was even green-white-green at The Dell in 1982-83.
That all changed in 1991-92, though. Since arriving in 1986, the only deviation in the classic Arsenal home and away colourways that adidas had provided was the white socks worn at Watford but now, for the first time, yellow shorts were available.
New signing Ian Wright had made a scoring debut away to Leicester City in the Rumbelows Cup on September 25, 1991. On that occasion, Wright wore number 9 but that proved to be a one-off – Alan Smith was back in the side for the trip to Southampton three days later and so Wright took 8 as he marked his league bow with a hat-trick in a 4-0 win.
Incidentally, Wright would also bag three goals at home to Southampton in a 5-1 win on the final day of the season, securing fourth place, with the yellow shorts having been worn away to Sheffield United in the fourth-last game too.
As mentioned in a recent article, when the Premier League was established, shorts-clashes were no longer required to be dealt with, and so Arsenal dispensed with the yellow shorts, wearing the normal away kit at Southampton (Sheffield United had switched to white home shorts for 92-93).
The next time they would wear yellow shorts would be against Mallorca on September 11, 2001, while the all-yellow look wouldn’t return until the 2010-11 season.
