Having denied Manchester United a domestic treble in winning the 1993-94 Coca-Cola Cup, Aston Villa qualified for the following season’s UEFA Cup and were drawn with Inter Milan.
This was still a time when home sides generally changed when a colour-clash occurred and Inter wore white in the first leg in the San Siro.
With Villa’s away kit at the time being green and black stripes, they had to put a contingency plan in place for the game at Villa Park, as this page from the programme shows (thanks to Dave Hitchman, owner of a huge collection of Villa shirts).
Was never available commercially and worn only once, some background here for you from a match programme at around that time pic.twitter.com/O6PaOXHokK
— Aston Villa Shirts (@dave_hitchman) October 13, 2017
However, as the article mentioned, there was a chance that the new shirt wouldn’t be needed and so it proved, with the white shorts and socks on Villa’s home kit deemed to be providing enough differentiation.
A 1-0 home win for Villa meant the tie finished 1-1 on aggregate and they progressed on penalties – with their opponents in the next round being Trabzonspor.
The Turkish club had chosen claret and blue as their colours as a tribute to Villa and in the first leg they changed to white with Villa in their home strip as the hosts won 1-0.
Back in Birmingham, Trabzonspor were in claret and blue stripes and either the UEFA delegate or the referee effectively decided Villa’s away strip clashed with their home colours – or else the black officials’ kit – and so the white shirt was called into action.
Villa won 2-1 on the night, but it wasn’t enough as they exited on away goals and the white shirts saw no more action.
i always have something against the home team changing …..feels wrong, i didnt know it was a UEFA CL rule