While Hull City’s colour-scheme is not absolutely unique, it is quite distinctive in English football.
Accepting that old gold and amber are different colours – even if both have varied in shade based on manufacturers’ whims over the years – the Tigers tend to use more ‘third colours’ (usually white but occasionally red in the past) than Wolves, say, and though Newport County have varied their look, striped shirts have not become as strong a part of their canon as they have on Humberside.
In recent seasons, Hull City have taken advantage of their dual-core identity – and relatively small number of clashes – by having a striped shirt and a (relatively) solid amber one in the wardrobe: essentially two home kits to call on.
We looked to transpose that principle – along with a classic white strip – to the past and, with the blessing of fellow Football Kit Podcast presenter and Hull City kit expert Les Motherby, we landed on West Ham United’s 1991-92 Bukta offerings.
Essentially, the West Ham ‘Argentina’ away design moves up a slot for the home, similarly the third style becomes the away and the Hammers’ primary look is the basis for the amber third/alternative home.
West Ham made good use of interchangeability with the real kits, albeit with only two options for each of the shorts and socks; here, all 27 mixes would have been possible and, dare we say, very few of them would not have worked.
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That away kit- I remember St. Johnstone had it in blue instead of amber, and wondered why Dundee United didn’t have the same design as they had bukta too at the time, just a plain white shirt, so when as a kid starting drawing kits, united got that design instead, tangerine instead of amber.
Lovely stuff, Pete! Now that you mention it, the third kit has (unintentional) similarities with the 1993-94 Dundee United home by Loki, whose sole PL appearance was with Swindon that season