- As ever, The Celtic Wiki was an invaluable resource in putting this together
Meeting between Celtic and Hibernian are something we have looked at more than once:
- Change is Bad, no. 2 – Celtic v Hibernian, 1989
- Season’s Meetings – Celtic v Hibernian, 2000-01 and 2001-02
This instance pre-dates both of these and features an oddity that we haven’t yet got to the bottom of. At the beginning of September 1985, Celtic travelled to Easter Road twice in the space of four days, first in the League Cup and then in the league, and their kit approach was somewhat esoteric.
The first clash finished 4-4 after extra time, with Hibs winning in a penalty shootout. The hosts were in their new home strip, which featured a white horizontal stripe around the midriff and white socks. Celtic wore their yellow third kit – for only the third time, with the strip most associated with a 3-1 loss to Rapid Vienna in 1984 as well as appearing in a friendly against Hibs in January 1985, even though the home was worn in the two league games away to Hibs that season.
Perhaps it was the defeat that caused Celtic to take a different tack the following Saturday. This time, they wore hoops, but not the new shirt launched that summer – instead it was the 1982-85 jersey, with the CR Smith logo, introduced for 1984-85, applied as a patch. Green socks were used to avoid clashing with Hibs’ white.
However, the most notable aspect of the Bhoys’ strip as they won 5-0 was on their backs – the set of shirts was European-spec, meaning they had numbers. While Celtic would be forced to adopt shirt numbers nine years later, it’s quite possible that this was the first instance of them appearing on the hoops in a domestic game.
I read (also on the Celtic wiki) that the yellow “third kit” was based on the template Umbro used for the Arsenal away kit of the same era, which was yellow with dark blue trim. You can see faint trace of tramlines in the yellow shirt that also feature on the Arsenal away kit. I believe this was improvised for the Rapid Vienna tie in Autumn 84 and then used a couple of times against Hibs rather than being an official third kit although may be wrong. But I don’t remember the yellow kit being available for retail or worn by fans. A yellow second kit was released in season 85/86 but featured a lighter shade of green with white detail on the trim, a shiny sheen on the shorts with yellow flash and green turnups on the yellow socks.
The reverting back to the old kit with European style numbers against Hibs in September 85 was indeed a bit bizarre, maybe due to a kit washing catastrophe or David Hay having a kit deflection tantrum 10 years before Fergie !
If the intention of bringing out the old kit was to improve their fortunes it certainly worked as Celtic won 5-0 shortly after losing to Hibs in the League Cup, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZi11vGO94k