All change for Chelsea and Manchester City

Manchester City take on Chelsea in the Premier League on Sunday evening and, as usual, we expect that there will be a proliferation of blue on show.

For what it’s worth, our view is that the shorts and socks set-up can make a difference – when City have white first-choice socks, Chelsea’s all-blue block makes for plenty of contrast; navy socks, as last season, or sky-blue in the current campaign, can lead to an awkward mix.

That said, Uefa – famously pernickety with regard to clashes – allowed both to wear first-choice kits in the 2021 Champions League final, while it’s worth noting that blue-v-blue meetings have happened between them in the Premier League since 1993. Not long before that, though, the clubs met at Wembley with both changing into alternative outfits.

The Full Members’ Cup was a competition created in 1985-86 to fill the void left by the ban on English teams entering European competitions in the wake of the Heysel disaster and was open to teams in Division 1 and 2 (though the six sides that would have been in Europe played in the one-off ScreenSport Super Cup).

It was split into northern and southern sections with City and Chelsea emerging to meet in the decider. Before a crowd of 67,236, it was played on a Sunday – both teams had played in the league the previous day.

The old FA Cup rule regarding clashes was that both teams should wear different strips and this happened when Chelsea and City met in the cup in 1971 while it was the same in that season’s European Cup Winners’ Cup.

Back then, Chelsea’s change was yellow and blue but this time, the Blues were in white, with their regular Le Coq Sportif change kit having commemorative ‘Wembley 1986’ text added below the crest.

City were in their red and black strip, the shirts and shorts of which they had had to use at home to Tottenham Hotspur earlier that season.

This time, the default black socks were present, but the shirts – a set of replicas, Simon Shakeshaft informs us – featured the Manchester coat of arms rather than the City crest. This was a club tradition dating back to the days before crests on shirts, with the coat of arms used as they were seen to be representing the whole city.

It was last practised in an FA Cup final in 1981 and this would be the final time that the coat of arms would replace the crest – the civic symbol was included on the City players’ numbers for the 2011 FA Cup final but not in any deciders since then, as far as we are aware.

On the day, it wasn’t a talisman for City, as Chelsea won 5-4. The Full Members’ Cup, later sponsored by Zenith Data Systems, had two more colour-clash finals but in each case only one team change. Reading wore yellow as they beat Luton Town in 1987-88 while a blue-clad Southampton were beaten by Nottingham Forest in red in what proved to be the last match in 1991-92.