Given the retro cachet held by the Wales version of Admiral’s famous ‘tramlines’ design, it was always likely that a modern-day interpretation would appear and Umbro came up with that in 2012.
Rather than being a complete copy, it was instead reminiscent of the 1970s kit worn by Melchester Rovers in Roy of The Rovers, though the green trim on the gold stripe made clear where the inspiration lay.
After opening their 2014 World Cup qualifiying campaign with defeats at home to Belgium and away to Serbia, Wales enjoyed their first competitive victory in the new strip as they beat Scotland 2-1 in Cardiff in October of 2012.
With the Scots back in adidas and wearing white shorts and red socks, they opted against a mashup and instead wore their white and navy change kit.
In March of 2013, the countries met at Hampden Park but, with Wales’ second strip featuring white and dark green halves, it was not considered ideal against Scotland’s navy, especially as the back was solid green.
During the lifespan of the tramlines kit, Wales had a yellow version as their alternative strip and wore yellow socks with the red shirts and shorts against both Scotland and Yugoslavia.
*
With was no yellow change set of socks to hand in 2013, they decided to wear the backup green set from the change kit.
*
The overall red-red-green look foreshadowed how Portugal would look as they won the European Championship three years later and it proved lucky for Wales as goals from Aaron Ramsey and Hal Robson-Kanu gave them a 2-1 win after falling behind.
It remains a unique look in the Wales canon – in 2017, when they were away to France and also had a change kit with green socks, they instead opted to wear a white set with the red shirts and shorts.
Sadly all very interesting,though as a Norwich city fan a team that rarely needs 2 kits we have 3! why? ……. oh don’t tell me to flog more shirts!