- Thanks as always to Chelsea kit expert Nik Yeomans
We’ve previously looked at Chelsea’s unusual blue-shorts situation in 2006-07 but this post focuses on the goalkeeper kits used in their first season with adidas.
Using the new template whcih was in common use that season, the two kits were reversals of each other in dark grey and navy:
As this was an era when opposing goalkeepers were allowed to wear the same colour, Chelsea didn’t need to use a third goalkeeper kit that season, but the two available options were mixed and matched. The most common was the use of the navy shorts with the grey shirt and socks – Manchester City, Werder Bremen, Porto and Barcelona just some of the instances – while the home Champions League game against Porto saw navy-grey-grey, with navy-navy-grey against Bolton Wanderers.
At home to Watford in November that season, there was a curiosity as Carlo Cudicini was apparently unhappy with the comfort or the fit of the shirt provided and, when a replacement was provided, nobody noticed that it was devoid of the Samsung Mobile logo.
The reason that Cudicini was in goal at that time was of course due to the fractured skull suffered by Petr Čech away to Reading in October. With Cudicini having replaced him, the Italian was also forced off and so captain John Terry went in goal for the latter stages of the game.
The centre-back wore a grey goalkeeper shirt that had been prepared for third-choice custodian Hilário, matched with the black third shorts and white change socks that the Blues used at the Madejski Stadium.
For 2008-09, a new orange and black goalkeeper strip was launched, with the grey kit retained as a back-up. For the new few years, Chelsea would adopt a philosophy whereby a GK outfit would be retained for a second season as the alternative to its replacement.
After the Reading game a goalkeeper shirt was made up with 11 Drogba. The mind boggles. Logic would dictate that an un-numbered shirt would have been more practical. Fortunately it was never called into use and now resides in the Chelsea Museum Collection.
I love that in this case both (or in other cases 2 out off your 3) goalkeeper kits could be mixed and matched like this so long as one kit is “dark” ie navy blue or black and the other is “light” and/or a colour … so long as in this case the trim colours off both kits match the opposite version.