In 2012, the Cardiff City ownership moved away from 104 years of blue home shirts to switch to red.
The decision has since been reversed, it meant that the club’s sole season in the Premier League – their first in the top flight in 51 years – was spent looking very familiar, in red shirts, black shorts and red socks.
For the game away to Fulham in August, white change shorts were used and they were also called into action for the third round of the FA Cup away to Newcastle United.
This was Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s first game in charge of the club and perhaps it was his decision to go with white socks at St James’ Park too, given the success he enjoyed in such an outfit.
Maybe the decision had nothing to do with the new boss, but the kit combination worked a charm as second-half goals from Craig Noone and Fraizer Campbell earned Cardiff a 2-1 win after Papiss Demba Cissé had put Newcastle in front.
While they would go on to beat Bolton Wanderers in the fourth round, they exited the cup to holders Wigan Athletic in the fifth, and the win proved to be a high point for Solskjaer’s tenure, with Cardiff winning just three games in the league from then until the end of the season, finishing bottom of the table.
Against Bolton and away to Tottenham in March and Newcastle in May in the league, the white shorts were again worn but the white socks were like a butterfly – seen for just one day, but oh, what a day.
A Welsh club in red shirts, white shorts and white socks playing in the Premier League?
And then I woke up from my dream……….
In all honesty it was disgusting what Vincent Tan did to the identity of Cardiff City at the time, totally disregarding history and tradition to try and make a few quid in the Chinese market.
I’m half-surprised that Swansea didn’t bring out a blue away at the time just for the laugh!
Indeed, though Swansea did bring out a purple and yellow away kit in what I regarded as one of the ugliest adidas templates of all time (with equally naff sponsor logo)
https://i2-prod.walesonline.co.uk/incoming/article5825395.ece/ALTERNATES/s615/1Michu.jpg
But a full 41 years earlier their rivals had the same colour scheme as a rather superfluous away kit. The South Wales press quickly picked it up.
https://secure.i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02032/5904_040_2032737i.jpg
Yep even back in the 1970’s clubs had away kits that offered no differentiation from the home kit. And from video footage I’ve seen elsewhere Cardiff did indeed have a third kit in 1972 which alleviated clashing issues with teams in blue. The colour? Red!
Why on earth would anything think it clashed with blue? https://youtu.be/6D3VqCHow-Q?t=54
Indeed, I forgot about that particular match, though I certainly didn’t forget the words I muttered at the TV when the game got underway. To the lines of “why the f*** are the Jacks wearing purple instead of white???” followed by a great degree of difficulty telling them apart from the Everton team. Little wonder they lost.
To think they could have very easily sourced some black shorts from the adidas teamwear catalogue, or even used the (non-matching trim) black shorts issued with the black goalkeeper kit as they were the same design as the home, to alleviate the FA Cup rules on colour clashes. But in their infinite wisdom the kit man decided to do what I used to call “doing an Arsenal” (up until their trip to West Brom this season), and kit the team out in clashing purple, just because the shorts colours clashed. Yes, great move, purple is too similar to royal blue, just like orange is too similar to red.
Mad to think that just a month later Swansea would turn up at Everton in the league in white-white-black, which was far more distinguishable.
http://www2.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/Everton+v+Swansea+City+Premier+League+mQLPzyhCbScl.jpg
But anyway, back to Cardiff… they had an awful habit of wearing their “away kit” at home in 2013/14, didn’t they? 😉