Midweek Mashup – Bayern Munich, 2001

• Much of the information below comes from the excellent Bavarian Football Works site

Obviously, this weekly feature deals mainly with shorts and socks changes, but as we saw with Barcelona’s baselayer switch at Atletico Madrid a few years ago, there are times when other garments can contribute to what we consider the ‘kit’.

So it was when Bayern München travelled to face 1. FC Köln in October 2001.

Bayern’s kitman Charly Ehmann was on holidays and it seems nobody had noticed that Köln had reverted to a red home kit, having had a white shirt in 200-01, so just the new dark red strip was packed.

In any case, it would have made little difference if Bayern had brought their white and red away strip, while the ‘third’ was their red Champions League kit, an homage to the 1970s style. The silver kit introduced in 1998-99 was actually used that season too, its fourth campaign, but only in Europe, with Champions League markings.

Kick-off was delayed as the referee Lutz Michael Fröhlich tried to decided what to do. The home team adamantly refused to change and so the compromise reached was that Bayern would wear training bibs – featuring the adidas and Opel logos, but without numbers on the back.

The situation didn’t affect Bayern, who won 2-0, and Die Welt reporter Alexander Steudel felt that Köln’s stubborness might have been costly (Google Translate warning here):

Improvisation was needed before the kick-off, which was delayed by seven minutes, because the Bayern had travelled without away jerseys.

In addition, one must know that Charly Ehmann is on vacation – his daughter Veronika had made a mistake packing. But because the Cologne were stubborn and wanted to play in red, the guests had to strip white, sleeveless shirts without shirt numbers on their also red jerseys.

Maybe that’s why Cologne had considerable problems with the identity of the opponents, from the beginning it was clearly seen who is the leader and who fights against relegation.