We saw in a previous Season’s Meetings article how Wimbledon’s kits had proven troublesome for Sheffield Wednesday in 1993-94 but we made the point that both sides wearing home kits might have solved the issue.
In that same season, and the two that followed, the Dons’ games with Blackburn Rovers provided examples where a changing of kit led to a greater clash than if it hadn’t taken place.
Until the end of 1992-93, Wimbledon favoured royal blue but with green kits having been introduced for match officials when the Premier League was launched, black and navy were now available to teams and the new Ribero kit for them was darker blue.
Perhaps because it was still a shade of blue, Blackburn felt it best to wear the red and black striped shirts they had worn at Selhurst Park in 1992-93 but it created shorts- and socks-clashes and reduced the contrast that a half-white shirt would have provided. Rovers had had white change socks in 1992-93 – they wore them at Old Trafford – and these with the home shirts and shorts would probably have been the best way to go.
A year later and Wimbledon had the effectively same kit, but with new sponsors and ‘The Crazy Gang’ taking the place of Ribero, who had gone out of business during 1993-94.
Blackburn, who would go on to win the league, had a change kit in the same palette as previously but black was more prominent on the shirts while the shorts were red.
Then, in 1995-96, Rovers had actually moved on to a red away shirt with black sleeves but, when they struggled to win in that, they recalled the 1994-95 jersey in order to generate a turnaround in form.
The trip to Selhurst to face Wimbledon – now wearing kits made by Core – came during this period and they wore a mashup of the 1994-95 away shirt, 1994-96 home shorts and 1995-96 away socks.
For 1996-97, Rovers’ home kit had white socks and that is what they wore at Wimbledon.
