There has been background work to update these, and to expedite the process I have decided to have a Twitter competition to determine the best set of kits across the 36 ‘counties’ (the 32 actual counties on the island of Ireland, expatriate sides London, Warwickshire and New York and Fingal, part of Dublin but competing in a lower tier in hurling).
Basically, it will involve showing the jerseys of two counties (first-choice, goalkeeper(s) and change, if applicable) and asking users to choose which they prefer in a poll. For example, these are the four which would feature for Cork – red primary shirt, white goalkeeper and alternative, blue goalkeeper alternative and hooped goalkeeper alternative:
Rather than using the GAA’s own inequitable provincial system, we have decided for a straight knockout open draw, with four preliminary round games followed by rounds of 32, 16, eight, four and two to arrive at a winner.
Following this morning’s draw for the preliminary round, independently adjudicated by the rasher sandwich we had yet to eat for breakfast, the first four ties are:
…and then on Sunday, in Gaelic football’s McGrath Cup, the first half between Limerick and Kerry caused such confusion that Kerry changed at half-time.
Spot the difference between the first and second half at the Kerry v Limerick McGrath Cup Final this afternoon! 📸: @Diarmuid_Gpic.twitter.com/tCv5U2fuwo
It got us in mind of some of the worst clashes* we have seen, across various sports. One would think in the modern era, with nearly every top football club having three kits, that clashes would be a thing of the past, but you’d be wrong.
Spurs haven’t been blameless when the away team, either – in 2012-13, their home was all-white and away all-navy, with a silver and black halved third outfit a questionable choice. Their trip to face West Bromwich Albion could certainly have been better dealt with, though there have been worse clashes.
West Brom also proved troublesome for Newcastle United on the final day of 2002-03, though of course the blame lies with the Toon for having a cream and navy away when their home is black and white stripes.
Three years previously, Newcastle had a white away, which obviously couldn’t be worn away to Tranmere in the FA Cup. Switching to white shorts to avoid a shorts clash arguably made the overall look even worse, however.
While Arsenal generally change when away to teams with white shirts, there are times when teams visiting them will have white. Why Charlton Athletic were allowed to have white jerseys and red shorts at Highbury in 2000 is anybody’s guess.
Later that same season, Arsenal wore a new navy third shirt at home to Sparta Prague in the Champions League. While the Czech side’s shirt is dark red and a very different colour to the navy up close, from a distance there was what we might term a ‘shade clash’, so much so that Arsenal switched to their yellow away shirts for the second half.
At international level, last spring saw Belgium and Portugal both change for a friendly, with poor results.
Going further back, at the 1970 World Cup in Mexico, Czechoslovakia opted for white as their first-choice colours, so England had to change when meeting them. Their sky-blue alternative kit was troublesome for viewers on black-and-white televisions though, and so for the game against Germany in the knockout stages, England reverted to red.
Strictly speaking, the meeting of Scotland and New Zealand in the 2007 Rugby World Cup dealt with a clash as the All Blacks changed to grey jerseys, still with considerable black panelling. Combined with Scotland’s shirt in the newest Canterbury template, featuring a lot of lighter embellishments, it was far from ideal.
This was the 2011 Australian Rules Football grand final, between Collingwood (black and white stripes) and Geelong (navy and white hoops). In the AFL, the home team wears dark shorts and the away team white shorts and that helped here, as did Collingwood having black backs and Geelong white backs. In a fast-moving game, however, confusion was a strong possibility.
The shirt in the bottom-right image of the three above ended up being chosen, and it saw its first game-time at the weekend – but, in what must surely be a first, it wasn’t Limerick who wore it.
It’s the time of year when the winners of the various county championships compete in the four provincial championships as they chase All-Ireland glory early in the new year, and Adare, the Limerick intermediate football winners, made it to the Munster club final against Kerry counterparts Kenmare Shamrocks.
Both Adare and Kenmare play in red and black, so both had to change. While Kenmare had a reversal of their usual jerseys to hand, Adare ended up taking to the field in the green of their native county, showcasing the new shirts (click on image for more):
Unfortunately for Adare, the green didn’t prove to be a lucky charm as Kenmare won by 12 points.
While a variety of football clubs have opened votes to the virtual floor to decide on new strips, in Gaelic games it’s something which hasn’t been explored until now, with Limerick dipping their toe in the water on Thursday.
Today (Saturday, October 1) sees the replay of the All-Ireland senior (Gaelic) football final take place.
Dublin are attempting to win a fourth title in six attempts while Mayo are trying to lift the Sam Maguire Cup for the first time since 1951. Twenty years ago, Mayo came very close to attaining glory, losing to Meath after a replay, and it is the sartorial events of 1996 that we will look at here.
Both counties have predominantly green jerseys, Mayo with a red hoop while Meath’s is trimmed in gold (yellow really, but that colour is called amber when Kilkenny wear it, saffron when it’s used by Antrim or Clare, and primrose if describing Roscommon). However, despite Meath having lined out in their alternative jerseys when the counties met in a national league quarter-final earlier in 1996, the only concession towards a colour-clash for the biggest game of the year was the Royals wearing green shorts:
Mayo nearly won, but a fortuitous late point by Colm Coyle – a delivery to the goalmouth which was allowed to bounce over the crossbar – secured a draw. The replay was set for a fortnight later, but in his Sunday Independent column the week after the drawn match, former Meath star Colm O’Rourke made plain his dissatisfaction with the colours issue, believing it to have caused confusion:
Let’s start with the jerseys. It’s hard to credit that Meath and Mayo played the most important game of the year without a change.
In the ’88 All-Ireland semi-final, Meath wore gold and Mayo red, the second colours of both team. As recently as the league quarter-final in Roscommon, both sides changed [sic – Mayo didn’t]…so why not last Sunday? It beggars belief.
It is a major issue which people who have not played at this level might be unaware. Players react instantly to a splash of colour, particularly with peripheral vision; they notice someone coming in from the side and a strip on a jersey or a change of togs is not enough to make for instant recognition.
I did not hear any Mayo player complain, but [Meath’s] Tommy Dowd said he made a mistake, passing to Pat Holmes when he thought it was Barry Callaghan, while Colm Coyle knocked the ball away from John McDermott on one occasion when it was obvious he figured him to be one of the opposition.
Any near clash of colours should bring immediate change. In the semi-final meeting of Kerry and Mayo, again the colours were much too similar and alternative strips should have been automatic.
For the second game, Meath took the field in their change jerseys, a reversal of the normal pattern. In his autobiography Misunderstood, Meath player Graham Geraghty mentions watching the replay as part of his research for the book and being surprised to hear on the commentary that both sides had been asked to change jerseys for the replay but Mayo refused to do so.
Mayo did change their shorts, incidentally, but that only amounted to a striping difference and the crest swapping sides with the O’Neills wordmark.
The game will always be remembered for the early brawl which resulted in sendings-off for Meath’s Coyle and Liam MacHale of Mayo, who had been the man of the match in the drawn encounter. His loss affected Mayo and Meath triumphed. At the time of writing, Mayo are still waiting.
Note: The bulk of this appeared in the Evening Echo on August 2.
The two most successful clubs in Cork senior hurling, Blackrock and Glen Rovers (32 and 26 titles respectively), have fairly similar jerseys. The Rockies wear green and gold hoops while the Glen don green, gold and black hoops, and, by and large, one or both have changed when they have played.
Blackrock (1999)
Glen Rovers (1989)
For much of the 20th century, the rule in Cork regarding clashes was that the older club could retain its first-choice jerseys, forcing their opponents to change. As a result, Blackrock (formed in 1883) would stay in their famous hoops, while Glen (established in 1916, with the black hoop representing those who died for the cause of Irish freedom) would use the equally famous black and white hoops of their sister football club St Nicholas.
The legendary Christy Ring in action for the Glen in the 1956 Cork SHC final against Blackrock
The 1960 final
Four county finals saw the sides paired in the 70s, with the usual green/gold v black/white in the 1973 and ‘75 deciders. By the time both made it back to the final a year later though, the Glen sought to be allowed to wear their usual colours. They argued that the new set of jerseys purchased had wider hoops, allowing easier differentiation, and they offered to wear black shorts too. The county board’s general purposes committee refused this request, however, and so the Glen ended up investing in a ‘proper’ set of change jerseys, gold with black and green trim, the look set off with black shorts. It didn’t do them any harm, anyway, as they avenged the loss of a year earlier.
The club’s last final meeting of the decade was in 1978. Again, the Glen were in the gold and black strip but this time Blackrock had to wear an alternative too, the ‘older club’ rule having been dispensed with. The Rockies, captained by the recently-deceased John Horgan, regained their title wearing Meath-style green jerseys with gold collars and cuffs.
While the 1990s weren’t that memorable for either club, they did meet in the 1998 semi-final and it was the same configuration, green against gold. This would be the case again in 2004, but in ’08, while Blackrock were again in green, the Glen turned out in their normal shirts and black shorts – the look they hadn’t been allowed use in ‘76.
2004
2008
By the time the clubs’ minors met in the 2013 county final, the Glen had procured a new alternative – wide black and green hoops, giving them a Nemo Rangers-esque look. Note too how their goalkeeper is also wearing this configuration (apologies for the poor pic)
For the 2014 senior quarter-final against Ballymartle – the same colours as Blackrock – the Glen used another different arrangement of their hues. This time, it was effectively a Kerry jersey, green with a gold hoop, albeit with black sleeves, as Ballymartle wore black with green and gold trim. Which brings us to the recent county U21 championship meeting with Blackrock.
In advance of the game, both clubs had been informed that change jerseys would be needed and neither had a problem in wearing them – the only problem was that they were too difficult to distinguish. With Blackrock having entered into a sponsorship deal with Mater Private in recent years, their logo was applied to the green jerseys, but on a gold patch, increasing the similarity between them and the Glen’s change offering. In real terms, the black sleeves were the only real difference.
We weren’t at the game, so we don’t know if any, or many, passes were misplaced by the players, but spectators who were there said that visibility was far from ideal. Fingers crossed that, if the clubs’ paths cross in the senior championship, the issue will be dealt with in a more optimal way.
Oh, and, given that it’stheGAA, we couldn’t finish without an obligatory pic of on occasion when there was no change of jerseys.
Sunday night saw France play their final Group A game in Euro 2016, against Switzerland. While they are the hosts of the competition, that doesn’t necessarily mean that Didier Deschamps’ side are the ‘home’ team for each match and they were forced to change kit – despite the fact that other red-v-bluematch-upshave been allowed during the tournament and the apocalypse was avoided.
On the left below is the ‘real’ France away kit, marketed since the spring; on the right is what was used against the Swiss, with the sleeves toned down, so much so that they look grey from a distance.
The answer came from Yellow Away Kit on Twitter, after a quick perusal of Twitter:
Clearly, the FFF had been informed of UEFA before the championship started that their away would have to be modified, as this graphic, released by UEFA, shows the alternative version. It would appear that commercial considerations took precedent, though. One would assume that the same situation will pertain for the remainder of the Euros and for the World Cup qualifiers, effectively leaving France with a strip which can only be worn in friendlies.
There is a precedent of sorts in Gaelic games in Ireland. In 2010, Cork launched a new shirt and, soon after, a white change top was released, with navy oddly prominent, especially as it had been jettisoned as a trim colour from the red shirt:
In the GAA, alternative shirts are only used when required, so the white only got an outing when Cork’s minor (under-18) football team played Armagh in an All-Ireland quarter-final. However, the senior team reached the All-Ireland against Down, who wear red and black, meaning both counties had to change. Down wore saffron and black, the traditional colours of their province Ulster, while Cork opted for white, but with some modifications.
That should have been the end of it, but in March 2011, Cork met Down again in a national league game and wore the white and navy shirts (note goalkeeper Ken O’Halloran wearing white too). That summer, the All-Ireland draw again pitted Cork against Down but this time a a version similar to the 2010 final was worn, albeit without cuffs and with the GAA logo in its more usual petrol blue colour.
In Gaelic games, Cork’s famous red and white kit is one of the most instantly recognisable, but that hasn’t always been the case. Tomorrow night, March 12, they play Kilkenny in a national hurling league game and will wear special limited-edition blue shirts, representative of those worn a century ago.
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the 1916 Rising in Ireland, the start of the push for independence, and Cork’s blue strip is to mark that. The original idea came from documentary-maker Samuel Kingston of Fócas Films, who is producing a programme on the Cork kit called An Fhuil Agus An Bindealán (the Irish for ‘the blood and the bandage’, the nickname given to the Cork colours).
For more on the Cork kit history, as well as how Kerry and Donegal could better solve their kit-clash, visit our dedicated GAA site, Pride In The Jersey.
Sligo are one of only two Irish counties not to wear O’Neills kit (Waterford are the other).
In 2014, they signed a new deal with Kukri, the company’s first foray into the manufacture of men’s kit at intercounty level. They have recently launched a new kit for the coming campaign.
Sligo kit, 2014-15
Sligo kit, 2016-
That kit, and the newest offering for 2016, both feature socks with the Kukri logo on them – but such a practice contravenes the rules of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA):
Given how it hasn’t been policed in the past two years, they’ll probably be okay, though.
In our precocious teenage years, we wrote to O’Neills, seeking to wow them with our design skills and possibly secure some summer work. A nice reply was received and the notion of the work wasn’t ruled out (sadly it came to nothing), with one of the company’s brochures also included.
Judging by the pictures on the cover, the available shirt designs and the county sponsors, we’d place it around the 1996 mark. Something interesting to note is that, at the time, O’Neills didn’t provide the official shirts for Clare, Kerry, Galway or Wexford but their versions of those counties’ jerseys were shown here. Click on any picture for a larger image.
