Some of the mashups featured in this series have been aesthetically pleasing, others not so much; generally, though, all of the items will be part of the club or country’s own wardrobe.
This wasn’t the case with today’s entry, Scotland’s strip worn against Switzerland in Basel in May of 1957.
While red and navy don’t ordinarily clash, this was the era of black-and-white television and so it was determined that Scotland should change from white shorts to a darker colour. They didn’t bring any alternatives with them and so the Swiss offered a set – of orange shorts.
Scotland won 2-1 (judge for yourselves here if the shorts aided differentiation) but the match report in The Glasgow Herald was not complimentary towards the performance or the kit (I’m grateful to the Muriel & Jasper blog for this information).
According to the writer, a well-turned out team starts a game with a “good conceit of themselves” and, in this regard, Scotland’s combination was “shocking”.
“To the expected dark blue shirts and red hose, were added shorts of a vivid orange hue and the ensemble was unbearably lacking in taste,” he wrote. It was, he added, “no consolation to know that it was the Swiss who decided on the orange shorts”.
When the sides met at Hampden Park in November, the orange shorts would be seen again, but this time as part of an all-orange Swiss kit as Scotland won 3-2.
For extra midweek mashup points, Scotland’s red socks were actually from their change strip, due to their regular navy socks (with red tops) clashing with Switzerland’s black socks with red/white turnovers. Nowadays it is extremely rare to see any other colours other than red or white on a Swiss kit (home or away)