West Ham United rounded off their Premier League campaign as they played the Washington Generals to the Harlem Globetrotters of Manchester City, who clinched a fourth straight title with a 3-1 victory.
While the fixture often sees the away team changing due to the sky-blue sleeve-clash, West Ham opted to wear their home strip as it was better than the other options, which are white and blue.
A decade ago, West Ham also rounded off their season away to a City side that were confirming themselves as champions. That saw them in alternative shirts, a set being used for the only time.
For 2013-14, the Hammers’ away kit was in the popular colour-scheme of white shirts with sky-blue shorts and socks.
While it was practical as most of their clashes were against red teams, when West Ham reached the Capital One Cup semi-finals and wore it away to Manchester City, who had white socks that season, the confusion arising from the overall clash came in for comment on social media.
It certainly didn’t help West Ham as they lost 6-0.
By the time they had to go to Manchester again on the final day of the league season, either West Ham or somebody in an administrative role decided that a different approach would be needed.
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With white having solved the other clashing issues during the season – West Ham wore their home kit against teams in red and white stripes – there had been no need to call upon the black shirt that was marketed as the third option.
However, there was a theory that, as it was launched without its own shorts and socks, it was intended as more of a fashion item. As it was at the end of its lifespan, there was no appetite to create special shorts and socks and so the away sets were used at Etihad Stadium.
While they had exactly as much sky blue as they had had in January, it was easier to differentiate without the large levels of white.
Thankfully, it wasn’t 6-0 this time – Manchester City only needed a draw to win the league but made sure of things as they triumphed 2-0.
The co-founder of Thames Ironworks FC, and then-managing director of Thames Ironworks, Arnold Hills went to University College, Oxford. He earned two football blues and so the team he co-founded wore Oxford Blue.
Very bizarre that black shirt wasn’t used more than once. I remember playing PES 2014 with a patch that contained all the European major leagues (original base game didn’t have PL teams for example) and there that black kit had black shorts&socks instead of those sky blue ones that were used in real life. Without a doubt the white away kit would’ve been useful also for following season, WHU didn’t have a kit that didn’t clash with royal blue or claret&sky blue. 2014/15 away was a sky blue shirt with navy sash combined with navy shorts and sky blue socks and third kit had purple&black hoops so both of those options were far from ideal.
Talking about last Sunday’s fixture, glad Hammers used their home kit instead of blue third kit. Sleeves clash weren’t that big deal when WHU home kit had claret shorts instead white or sky blue ones. The only thing what I would’ve liked to see was to use last season’s solid claret socks instead of this season’s claret&sky blue hooped ones to make sure teams had clearly different pair of socks