Category Archives: Midweek Mashup

Midweek Mashup – Barcelona, 2013

19 Thursday Oct 2017

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A new departure this week, and not just because power outage problems here in Ireland mean that it’s published on a Thursday, rather than a Wednesday.

No, this week’s edition is notable because it features a mashup which doesn’t involve any alteration to the traditional kit elements of shirts, shorts or socks.

With a lot of focus on Catalan independence of later, attention had been paid to Barcelona’s training tops, which are arranged in red and yellow stripes like the Senyera, the flag of Catalonia.

In the 2013-14 season, the club’s away kit was in this format:

Nike-Barcelona-2013-2014-away-kit-shirt-senyera-01

It was worn with plain yellow change socks as well as yellow change shorts, but instead we’re looking at the game away to Athletic Bilbao on December 1, 2013.

You’ll note above how there is a yellow-to-red effect on the sleeves and socks, achieved with stripes of varying widths. The red at the end of the sleeves meant that the long-sleeved shirts, as favoured by Gerard Piqué, had red on the forearms, and, as per FIFA rules, baselayers worn under short sleeves had to imitate this.

It made for quite a red look and, given that Bilbao have red and white stripes, referee Juan Martinez Munuera came up with a solution – he asked Barça to wear yellow baselayers.

Nike-Barcelona-2013-2014-away-yellow-baselayer-Bilbao-01

Why he didn’t also ask for the yellow shorts and socks to be worn, maximising the contrast, is unknown. However, Barcelona, undefeated in the league until then, lost 1-0, and the yellow baselayers were not seen again.

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Midweek Mashup – Liverpool, 1988

04 Wednesday Oct 2017

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Back in March, we looked at the unusual kit combination Liverpool wore at Watford for three consecutive seasons in the 1980s – usual red home shirts, black shorts and yellow socks.

We mentioned in that piece how there had been a few subsequent occasions when white socks were donned – at Bolton in the FA Cup in 1993, for instance, or for some games at Portsmouth. Another trip to Fratton Park, almost 30 years ago, threw up something totally different, though.

Liverpool-1987-1988-home-shirt-kit-adidas-Crown-Paints-Portsmouth-black-socks-01

Quite how and why black socks came to be used for the 2-0 win on February 27, 1988 is hard to say.

When Liverpool went to Aston Villa in the FA Cup in the January, the previous 86-88 away shirt was used as there were fears the grey kit would clash with Villa’s Hummel halved effort (the following two seasons, after Candy replaced Crown Paints, would see a bespoke white shirt worn at Villa Park).

While those shirts were retained, the accompanying white socks were not, it seems. Even so, Arsenal had been able to source white adidas socks for their trip to Watford in 87-88, so you’d have thought Liverpool could have done the same.

The black socks seem to have been teamwear – if they were a change set for the 86-88 away, then they remained an unused option. At Charlton – who had white socks – in 86-87, Liverpool opted for the full yellow third kit rather than white-black-red or white-black-black.

This one will have to go down as an unsolved mystery. And, for all the guff marketeers come up with in saying new strips are tributes to past alternative kit combinations, it’s unlikely that we’ll see this look again on a Liverpool team.

Midweek Mashup – Monaco, 1992

27 Wednesday Sep 2017

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For most of Monaco’s tenure with adidas, they adopted a dual change kit policy – an all-white kit to wear away to teams in red, and an all-red kit when their opponents were white.

Of course, every so often they would come up against a team that, like themselves, had a home shirt which combined red and white, and that was the case in the 1991-92 European Cup Winners’ Cup semi-final against Feyenoord. A special third shirt had to be sourced.

However, while the white kit, seen here against Roma in the quarter-finals of the competition, was in the new adidas Equipment style, the emergency third for the trip to  Rotterdam was of the older variety.

In fact, it was a design nearly three years old, having been first seen on the Liverpool away kit in the 1989-90 season. Apart from the trefoil (minus the adidas wordmark), crest and sponsor, it was identical to the Pool away – we’re unaware of this design being used in any other colourway, let us know if you know of any examples. Monaco’s home shorts and socks were used.

Monaco-adidas-1991-1992-third-maillot-shirt-Feyenoord-Cup-Winners-Cup-Liverpool-01

With the game in Monte Carlo having been a 1-1 draw, Monaco advanced to the final as the sides finished 2-2 at De Kuip.

They would lose to Werder Bremen in the final but, perhaps oddly, Werder wore white shirts while Monaco were in their usual home tops.

Midweek Mashup – Bayern Munich, 1987

20 Wednesday Sep 2017

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Earlier this year, we looked at Bayern Munich’s special ‘Brazil’ kit, worn to bust the curse they felt had enveloped them for away games against Kaiserslautern in the 1980s.

That initiative was the idea of coach Udo Lattek, who was naturally superstitious. While the yellow shirts and white socks of the Brazil kit were not seen after the one-off outing against Kaiserslautern, the shorts were retained as an alternative home set.

They were used away to Hamburg in March 1987, for instance, but had also been seen in the 1986 DFB Pokal final against Stuttart, with Bayern having lost the 1985 decider against Bayer Uerdingen in all-red.

The all-red look didn’t hinder them as they won the Bundesliga by six points. In their European Cup run, the light-blue shorts, and matching socks, were used away to PSV but otherwise it was all-red against Austria Vienna, Anderlecht and Real Madrid as they reached the final  (as an aside, they wore a lot of different red shirts that season, but that’s an examination for another time).

Quite why Lattek insisted that the blue shorts be used with the red shirts and socks against Porto, we don’t know. The shirt was also notable for carrying the Bayern crest for the first time.

adidas-Bayern-Munich-Munchen-1987-European-Cup-final-trikot-Porto-01

While Ludwig Kögl’s first-half goal put Bayern ahead, Porto came back in the second half and won 2-1 with strikes from Rabah Madjer and sub Juary.

Lattek paid for the loss with his job, and joined Cologne as their director of football, his belief in superstition not shaken.

In his first season there, they finished third, only missing out on second due to Bayern’s better goal difference. While Lattek’s partnership with young coach Christoph Daum played a part in their rise, much of the credit instead went to the blue pullover he wore on matchdays.

Midweek Mashup – England, 1982

13 Wednesday Sep 2017

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I actually don’t have that much of a problem with the Nike Vapor template.

This year’s Chelsea, Manchester City and Tottenham kits are quite nice, for instance, My problem was that, in 2016, the company decided to dick around with teams’ traditional looks, altering shorts and socks and socks colours – a recent Midweek Mashup featured Internazionale in what should have been their actual kit.

England suffered in this regard too, with their current kit having white shorts and red socks. The PR blurb on the launch mentioned honouring John Barnes’ excellent goal against Brazil in 1984 but those colours were obviously only worn because of a clash with the hosts, and the team didn’t have sky-blue sleeves then either.

The fact that two kit elements were changed from the classic look was what offended the sensibilities of traditionalists. If it had been just red socks added to a white shirt and blue shorts, it wouldn’t have been so drastic – perhaps then we should be sorry that England didn’t beat West Germany at Wembley in 1982, with somebody scoring a wondergoal, as then that look could have been the basis for the 2016 kit.

The countries had met in the ’82 World Cup in Spain, with England changing (into two different styles of red shirts), but for this friendly in October, the Germans had a brand-new green pinstriped away shirt, similar to the kit France had at the time.

Given that pretty much every country with white home shirts also has white home socks though, were the Germans engaging in a bit of trolling with their socks?

Germany-adidas-1982-away-kit-shirt-trikot-England-Wembley-01

It meant that England had to wear their away socks – incidentally, they reverted back to the style they had had before the World Cup, when the ubiquity of the Admiral logos on the turnover meant they weren’t allowed.

It made for a far more cohesive look than the current home outfit.

England-Admiral-1982-home-shirt-kit-red-socks-West-Germany-01

 

Midweek Mashup – Middlesbrough, 1981

30 Wednesday Aug 2017

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On January 17, 1981, Granada Television had planned to show extended highlights of the Division 2 game between Bolton Wanderers and Derby County.

A waterlogged pitch at Burnden Park meant a late switch was required, and so the Division 1 meeting of Manchester City and Middlesbrough at Maine Road was the logical choice. There was a problem, though.

At the time, strict advertising rules meant that sponsors’ logos were not allowed on shirts for games shown on TV – see here for how Coventry City had to deal with this problem on their heavily-branded ‘Talbot’ shirts.

As the home team, City had a set of blank shirts readily to hand but Middlesbrough had travelled with just their normal adidas kit, bearing the mark of Datsun Cleveland. And then somebody had a brainwave – there was another team close by who played in red adidas shirts.

Middlesbrough-1981-kit-Manchester-United-shirts-Manchester-City-TV-no-sponsor-01

Unsponsored Manchester United shirts were picked up from Old Trafford and that’s what Middlesbrough wore with their usual shorts and socks – presumably the most recent instance of the United shirt being part of an all-red ensemble.

The change didn’t do Boro much good, though, as City – perhaps inspired by the crest facing them – won 3-2.

Midweek Mashup – Leeds United, 1993

23 Wednesday Aug 2017

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Earlier this year, we looked at an odd Leeds United mashup, centred around how the club had ditched yellow shorts, leading to an odd mix of their third shirt with home shorts.

When I was growing up, Leeds’ away was pretty much always yellow with some bit of blue and this was of course the case as the club won the last ‘old’ Division 1 title in 1991-92.

That summer brought a lot of change on the kit front, though. The club’s deal with Umbro ended, as did the short-term sponsorship arrangement with the Yorkshire Evening Post.

On both fronts, Admiral were the replacements as they sought to re-assert themselves in the kit game, with a five-year contract agreed, as outlined in the excellent book Do You Want To Win? by Daniel Chapman, which covers the club’s development during the period from 1988-92.

Sartorially, Admiral’s most noticeable change was the designation of blue as the away colour, with yellow demoted to third choice. Daniel goes into detail on blue Leeds change strips here, and it is a deviation mentioned in that piece that we will look at.

With nobody wearing white shirts and yellow shorts, there was never a need to switch from all-yellow, but the trip to White Hart Lane to face Tottenham Hotspur in February 1993 saw the team emerge in something resembling the change kit worn in the late 1960s.

Leeds-United-1992-93-Admiral-blue-away-kit-shirt-yellow-shorts-Tottenham-Spurs-01

Tottenham had navy shorts and socks, but Leeds only changed shorts, despite the Premier League having decreed that shorts-clashes between teams didn’t have to be solved, in contrast to the Football League’s rule.

While Leeds had beaten Spurs 5-0 at Elland Road in the new Premier League in August (with Eric Cantona scoring a hat-trick), their form had dipped since then and their defence of the title was characterised by a failure to win an away game – this was a 4-0 loss.

The league outings, coupled with the 3-0 Champions League defeat to VfB Stuttgart, meant the blue shirt was also winless and it wasn’t seen after this game, with the yellow preferred when a change was required.

Despite the five-year deal, Leeds and Admiral’s link-up ended in the summer of 1993, with Asics taking over. In 1993-94, Leeds would pair their home shorts with their yellow and blue striped away shirt at White Hart Lane, but subsequent seasons saw blue away shorts worn there with no problems.

Midweek Mashup – Watford, 1987

16 Wednesday Aug 2017

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We have already seen on a few occasions how Watford’s 1980s home kit of yellow shirts and red shorts and socks proved troublesome at times.

Liverpool were forced into a very unusual look, Nottingham Forest took to wearing all-white at Vicarage Road after a mix-up saw them wearing Watford’s change socks, and even the Football League handbook contributed to the confusion, as when the Hornets went to Old Trafford in 1984.

Three years later, Watford’s trip to face Nottingham Forest on Wednesday, August 19, 1987 would be notable.

First of all, Watford were in their away shirts, rather than just changing the clashing red socks, as they would do at Highbury or Anfield – presumably the referee on the evening wasn’t happy with Watford’s red shorts against Forest’s shirts, but one would have thought that yellow shirts and black shorts and socks, as worn away to Liverpool, would have sufficed.

In any event, it was the usual away white shirts and black shorts which were worn, but the mashup element comes from the plain white socks.

1987-Umbro-Watford-away-kit-shirt-white-socks-Nottingham-Forest-01

The change didn’t have a talismanic effect, as Forest won 1-0, but an explanation came in the programme for Watford’s next home game, at home to Tottenham on August 29 (thanks as always to Lee Hermitage for digging out this info):

Why white socks?

Watford wore white socks in their recent match at Nottingham Forest, as the photograph on page 7 of this programme reveals. Why? Manager Dave Bassett explains:

“We had to change kit to play Forest, and the present away kit has socks that are mostly black. That’s okay during daytime, but I feel that white socks give that extra bit of visibility at nighttime. It doesn’t mean we are changing our away kit, but you can expect to see us play in brighter coloured socks in our home evening games as well.”

The ‘new’ socks are purely for team use, and do not form part of the official club kit, so they are not available through the Hornet Shop.

It’s a fairly sound theory, and white socks under lights was always something Sir Alex Ferguson preferred in this time at Manchester United.

As far as we can see, the Watford home kit remained unchanged during that season, even for evening games – perhaps you might know of examples where white, or perhaps yellow, socks were worn? Get in touch if so.

Midweek Mashup – Internazionale, 2016

09 Wednesday Aug 2017

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At first glance, you might be confused as to why this is even clashed as a mashup.

Cast your minds back just over a year though, to the launch of the Nike Vapor template. As well as most teams having sleeves in a darker colour to their torso, mismatching socks were something else Nike had sought to impose – Barcelona, Brazil and Poland being notable exceptions.

For Internazionale, yellow socks were to be their lot – however, as luck would have it, their first Serie A game of 2016-17 was away to Chievo Verona. As a result, they looked quite normal:

2016-2017-Internazionale-Milan-Nike-home-kit-shirt-black-socks-Verona-01

Inter are back in black socks for the coming season, but let’s be honest – the stripes look shit, don’t they?

Midweek Mashup – Aston Villa, 1989

02 Wednesday Aug 2017

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For Aston Villa, sky-blue shorts are a regular go-to alternative when required.

A while back, we looked at how they were one of the options in 2011-12 season – and last season they also had mix-and-match options. In fact, in 2000-01, the home shorts were sky-blue.

Even if the away kit doesn’t complement the home colours, they’ve generally had change blue shorts, but for some reason, the start to the 1989-90 season – when Villa would go on to finish second – was an exception.

Why this should be the case was something of a surprise – they were still with Hummel and their previous sets, in the style of the 1986 Denmark kits, allowed for a lot of combinations.

The new away shirt was white with black sleeves and purple trim, but one would have thought that the previous claret shorts could have been used when required.

With the claret of the new home shirt slightly darker, it meant that Villa opted to wear it away to teams in red, with the away usually seen against sides in blue (due to referees seeking sleeve differentiation).

As the fixture-list would have it, Villa’s first league game of the season was away to Nottingham Forest. The home shirts were deemed okay, but the shorts had to be changed and so the away set were called into action:

Aston-Villa-1989-1990-hummel-home-shirt-away-black-shorts-Forest-01

Certainly unusual, but it didn’t seem to affect Villa as they drew 1-1. They would actually draw their first three games by that score before losing 2-1 at Southampton, but they bounced back thereafter and ended up finishing second to Liverpool.

By the end of the season though, Hummel had finally come up with blue shorts.