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Category Archives: Rarities and Oddities

Arsenal’s socksy football recalls a 20-year-old mystery

12 Thursday Apr 2018

Posted by denishurley in Rarities and Oddities

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Arsenal, Nike, Puma

On Thursday night, Arsenal made it through to the Europa League semi-finals as a 2-2 draw away to CSKA Moscow earned them a 6-3 aggregate victory.

In that game, Arsenal wore their third different set of socks with the home shirts and shorts, as noted by Kitman Ramsey (who wrote this piece and will have a guest blog appearing here again very soon):

UPDATE: Arsenal in plain white socks rather than the usual red and white faded socks. @museumofjerseys @TheArsenalShirt #afc

— N (@KitManRamsey) April 12, 2018

Arsenal-2017-2018-Puma-home-kit-white-socks-Europa-CSKA-01.png

The default socks, as mentioned feature red tops and red stripes which grow narrower, flowing into the white. Presumably these weren’t allowed against the red socks of CSKA while the plain red set, used away to Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur, were obviously out too.

Arsenal-2017-2018-Puma-home-kit-01
Arsenal-2017-2018-Puma-home-kit-red-socks-Chelsea-01

As far as we can recall, it’s nearly 20 years since Arsenal last wore three different sets of socks with their home shirts and shorts – again, it involved European fixtures but it’s far harder to explain.

The normal socks, used in almost all of the games featured a white panel outlined in navy:

Arsenal-1998-1999-Nike-home-shirt-01

However, for the Gunners’ first Champions League game, away to Lens, a set of red socks with white tops – like the previous alternative set but without the ornate ‘A’ from the crest – were worn.

Arsenal-1998-1999-Nike-home-kit-Lens-01

The normal socks returned for the next two league games, at home to Manchester United and away to Sheffield Wednesday, but in the Champions League against Panathinaikos at Wembley, another red set was used, this time featuring two white hoops.

Arsenal-1998-1999-Nike-home-kit-Panathinaikos-01The natural assumption at this stage would be to think that the first-choice socks contravened some UEFA rule, but they were worn for the next European tie, against Dynamo Kiev, and the return in Ukraine and away to Panathinaikos in the final game, with a reversed style used in the Wembley defeat to Lens, when a one-off third shirt was worn.

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League of Ireland Kit of The Week – Bohemians, 2006

06 Friday Apr 2018

Posted by denishurley in GLITWKOTW, Rarities and Oddities

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Bohemians, O'Neills

Bohemian FC, or Bohemians, initially wore white shirts with two red stripes and black shorts, but in the early 20th century that was changed to the now-familiar red and black stripes.

However, there have occasionally been exceptions, such as the red with black sleeves worn in the mid-1980s, and again in 2006, the club’s final year with O’Neills as their kit suppliers.

Bohs fan Luke O’Riordan feels that Bohs’ player-manager of the time, Gareth Farrelly, may have pushed for an all-black look, and while there were red flashes reminiscent of the Umbro style of the time, the fans didn’t take to it. “It was reviled,” Luke said.

Bohemians-2006-O'Neills-home-kit-Des-Kelly-black-01.png

The fact that Bohs finished ninth out of 12 teams in the Premier Division – and also incurred a three-point penalty for fielding an unregistered player – added to lack of memorability for the kit.

From a personal point of view, this kit does have one other insignificant association. On March 24, March 2006, I saw 35-year-old Vinny Arkins come off the bench for Bohs against Cork City at Turner’s Cross – 15 years and 364 days previously, he had played up front for Shamrock Rovers against City in an FAI Cup game, the first match I attended, and it was the last time I saw any of the players from the 1990 match in action.

 

Guest post – Gunners short-changed? The panel decides

01 Sunday Apr 2018

Posted by denishurley in Change kits, Clashes, Rarities and Oddities

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

adidas, Arsenal

Note: This story may be true, but for now you’d be best advised to note the date of publication before reading on. Thanks to Jay for coming up with the idea and the execution.

  • The large navy panels on the shorts of Arsenal’s 1988-90 home kit have long been a source of wonder to Jay from Design Football. After lots of research, he thinks he has finally got to the bottom of the issue.

“If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.”

The duck test, which may have long been subconsciously applied to this particular kit by hundreds of football fans, before being bypassed with head-scratching resignation, has, it turns out, come good again.

Arsenal-1988-1990-adidas-home-kit-01

The Arsenal 1988-1990 home kit by adidas looks like a mashup, thanks to the large navy panels on the shorts. This was by far the most of this long-accepted tertiary colour that had appeared on the club’s first-choice white items in the 20th century – nothing since has troubled the record – and, despite the sparing use of navy on the shirt and socks, it jarred. As it turns out, I have it on very good authority that the kit looks like a mashup, because it is a mashup.

But a mashup of what? Well, this story gets even more intriguing. Did you know Arsenal had a third kit in 1988-89? No? Neither do many of their fans, and it was news to me too.

As briefly as I can sum up, in the spring of 1988, a representative of adidas by the name of Rolf Palio visited Highbury with one example each of the following season’s home and away kits – the designs of which had been agreed with the club a year earlier – for the purpose of a low-budget photoshoot.

The away was what we now generally view as the ‘Anfield ’89’ kit, in yellow and navy, and the home shirt, most controversially at the time, featured a raglan sleeve design, with red stripes trimmed in navy running from neck to sleeve hem. The home socks were indeed those that would be seen in the Championship-winning run – the same as on the 1986-88 kit – but the shorts were different to the ones we know and love/hate.

Virtually identical to the previous season’s, the intended home shorts were white with stripes which matched those on the shirt sleeves. No large panels to be seen, and certainly not in navy.

 

Arsenal-third-1988-April-Fool-Jay-home-01
Arsenal-1988-1991-adidas-away-kit-Anfield-Thomas-1989-01

In addition, Palio had brought along the aforementioned third kit too.

With Bradford City flying at the top of Division 2 the previous autumn, a bright spark in North London telephoned Germany to say that red clashes with claret and yellow clashes with amber, so Arsenal would be needing an alternative in the event of the Bantams achieving promotion.

Adidas were tasked with coming up with something, and they did exactly that. Below is, I’m reliably informed, an accurate representation of the 1988-89 Arsenal third kit, which consisted of white shirt with red-trimmed navy stripes, white socks with matching stripes, and very familiar white shorts with navy panels.

Arsenal-third-1988-April-Fool-Jay-01

A beautiful outfit, in my opinion. There was, however, an obvious problem. As the Arsenal manager of the time, George Graham, is said to have exclaimed, oddly presciently with the benefit of hindsight: “No chance! I’m Arsenal’s manager, not Spurs’!”

This is where the details get a little sketchy, but the story goes that in this moment of hilarity, or perhaps sheer panic, concentration levels dropped and white shorts were grabbed as an afterthought for the Arsenal captain, Tony Adams, to don for the pictures.

The wrong shorts, as it turned out, and Palio departed to Germany with the third shirt, third socks, and intended home shorts. Whether or not Palio realised his and Arsenal’s mistake in time, or pre-Photoshop with launch deadlines fast approaching the bullet was bitten and the third shorts were deemed acceptable – or a combination of those explanations – is open for conjecture, but a new, mashup kit became first choice.

Bradford City, for their part, fell away and were eventually knocked out of the play-offs by Manchester City. Could the white kit have made an appearance had they made it up? Even if any hopes of it being marketed were most probably dashed? We’ll never know.

But I certainly wonder where that third shirt is now…

 

League of Ireland Kit of The Week – Athlone Town, 1974-75

22 Thursday Mar 2018

Posted by denishurley in GLITWKOTW, Kit history, Rarities and Oddities

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Athlone Town

  • Gerry Desmond is the a former Cork City programme editor and the club’s unoffical historian as well as being a repository of knowledge on all things League of Ireland. He wrote this piece on Athlone Town’s unique kit a while back and gave us permission to reproduce it here.

When I was a wee lad, which is a long time ago now, my first-ever love affair was with the League of Ireland.

Not too many people would make this confession in public, or in print, especially after the mature reflection made possible through the passing of several decades, without the fear of having to wear one of those curious jackets that tie at the back. But that’s the truth of it anyway, and nothing has changed since; I am still hopelessly in love with the League of Ireland.

I loved the football, naturally enough, and growing up in Turner’s Cross meant that I was blessed to have it right on my own doorstep. But there was so much more to love than just the matches or the colourful cast of characters that bestrode them; LOI football was – and remains, in my view – irresistibly quirky.

Cork Celtic was my team back then, long before Cork City was ever even dreamed of. Celtic had a central defender in the 70s called John McCarthy. John was known as The Postman. This was not a heroic title, however, as it would be in England, say, or Italy where it would signify his unfailing ability to deliver the goods. No, John McCarthy was known as The Postman because he was, well, a postman in real life. He usually delivered the goods on the pitch as well, to be fair. And of course there were others, such as Jerry ‘Mala’ Myers. I often wondered if he was a mala in real life, or what a mala might be. It was all very curious and quirky.

Celtic were amazing, when I followed them: brimful of contradictions and relentlessly exasperating, as any true lover should be. The club always seemed to be sellotaped together, invariably snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Yet, Celtic won a league title in style after losing 7-0 against Bohemians and subsequently attracted the incomparable George Best to its ranks, albeit briefly.

Today’s equivalent would be Ronaldo or Messi signing for City at the age of 26 or 27: that’s not an exaggeration, either – just think about that for a moment. It wasn’t just George Best, though; Celtic also bagged the only player ever to net a World Cup final hat-trick, Geoff Hurst. Not content with that, they also signed West Germany’s most legendary (pre-Muller) striker – Uwe Seeler, who had lined out against Hurst in that famous 1966 decider at Wembley.

And, for good measure, Bobby Tambling, Chelsea’s all-time leading scorer, wore Celtic’s colours for a few seasons and managed them too. That was the Celtic I knew and adored – barely able to pay the electricity bills, but capable of luring the game’s greatest names to Turner’s Cross. Now that is fairly hard-to-beat quirky, by any measure.

The League was relatively steady way back then, for a few years at least. Grounds, of course, were appalling pretty much everywhere but save for the loss of Drumcondra in 1972, membership was the same each season and nobody was tinkering with top-six/bottom-six experiments, thinking of forming a second division, planting teams in Kilkenny, Wexford or Monaghan, or inventing play-offs.

Life was simple. We stood on grassy banks in the sunshine, unless it rained and then we stood drenched on treacherous, slippery grassy banks. But we were young and didn’t care and I soaked up regular doses of quirkiness book-ended by Celtic’s swagger, incompetence, character and colour. Then, in the mid-70s, Athlone Town quite unexpectedly provided a brilliant example – possibly unsurpassed – of League of Ireland quirkiness.

Athlone-Town-1970s-shirt-A-on-front-01

In 1974-75, a time before sponsors’ names on football shirts were heard of never mind commonplace, Athlone Town wore (very pale) sky-blue jerseys bearing a large ‘A’ on the front. LOI football shirts were plain as plain could be till Athlone changed everything with their unprecedented, wackily courageous move. Numbers on the back, or an occasional crest: that was it for football shirts in Ireland up to then.

Later, in January 1976, Kettering Town attempted to become the first British club to carry a sponsor’s name – Kettering Tyres, it was, anoraks – but the FA, in a combination of shock, outrage and a tut-tutting overload, banned the club’s efforts. Athlone, however, had confidently promoted the letter ‘A’ all over Ireland, free from nasty FA interference, well before that. Still, you’d have to wonder, why? Like, why ‘A’?

Was there a company in Athlone called ‘A’? Or possibly ‘A1’ – did someone just run out of 1’s? Or did the Midlanders refuse to accept the ‘1’, claiming it had not been included in the original deal? Was it a way of escaping a fine, to carry an abbreviation rather than an entire company logo? Bizarre! Baffling! Quirky!

Maybe an Athlone director had been influenced by some hit US teen movie where college sweaters with ‘G’ or ‘W’ or ‘S’ were de rigueur? Or were Athlone, in fact, the actual (but not credited) inspiration for the American action/adventure TV series, The A-Team? One way or another, it’s a riddle unsolved to this very day: The Great Athlone Town Shirt Mystery. Of course, you can’t ask the club’s commercial manager of the time, so you can’t, as commercial managers weren’t invented until the 1980s.

Athlone

(Thanks to John O’Sullivan for supplying this picture)

Athlone’s trail-blazing capital letter trend didn’t catch on, sadly, so we never witnessed Bohemians proudly sporting a bold ‘B’ or Dundalk a defiant ‘D’ or Harps a flowery ‘F’. As a result of Town’s pioneering work, however, ‘A’ became the most instantly recognisable alphabetical unit to LOI fans everywhere that season. You knew your ‘A’s’ when you saw one, so you did and if you didn’t, you couldn’t fault Athlone Town for it.   I quite liked that groundbreaking Athlone shirt – can you imagine the collector’s item it would be today? It was quirky. It epitomised the league for me.

And some decent players ran out bearing those ‘A’ shirts – Karl Humphries, a gifted Cork lad who had previously played with Hibs and Celtic, was one. Then there was Johnny ‘Minno’ Minnock, another class act. Others that I can easily recall even now were Dougie Wood, Noel Larkin, Terry Daly and lunatic goalkeeper Mick O’Brien. In case the former custodian’s legal team gets to read this, the term ‘lunatic’ is used only to reference his cat-like agility, unquestioned bravery and obsessive hatred of Oriel Park crossbars. This was also the era of long hair and moustaches, though that has little to do with my tale, really.

The following season, Athlone somewhat rashly discarded their could-be-cult ‘A’ shirts, opting to change to their by now traditional blue and black stripes. This proved a colossal mistake, in my humble opinion, as Athlone, in the wake of the confusion caused to successive opponents faced with ten chests (lunatic goalkeeper exempted) emblazoned with giant ‘A’s’, had qualified for the UEFA Cup. That’s just my theory; several football historians believe the Midlanders had a really good team that season.

Athlone-Town-1975-1976-shirt-AC-MIlan-01.png

The Town soon created a slice of history, nonetheless, with their new ‘A’-less, striped shirts, becoming the first LOI club ever to win its debut European tie on aggregate. Norwegian club Valerengens – as they were known then – were comfortably put to the sword to set up an unbelievable pairing with mighty AC Milan in the second round (no bloody ridiculous qualifiers or seeding in those happy, carefree, quirky days!). But this is the point where those mystifying shirts could have sealed the most famous result in Irish football history, had they been retained. This is exactly where the fateful decision to dump the ‘A’ shirts finally came home to roost.

Much has been written down through the years about Athlone’s scoreless victory over the Italian aristocrats at St Mel’s. ‘Minno’ even squandered a penalty kick, trickling a faint effort into Albertosi’s arms, but the Town were far from flattered by their 0-0 win.

milan.jpg

However, I firmly believe that Athlone could have put the entire tie beyond all doubt in that first leg, had they been brave enough to resurrect the ‘A’ shirts for the occasion. Can you imagine the Milanese confusion? Already ill-at-ease due to St Mel’s rusting corrugated iron, strong smells of fresh paint and Brillo in the dressing room, and six-inch layer of mud, they would have spent the ninety minutes wondering just what the hell the ‘A’ thing was all about.

Was it a half-hearted ‘AC’ tribute, for instance? Or, were these Irish upstarts attempting to insult Serie A? “Che cos’é?” Romeo Benetti would have asked himself, arms in supplication, each time Humphries sped past.

“Non lo credo!” Nereo Rocco would have exclaimed from the matchbox-sized dugout, bemused, as his team reeled before his eyes. Instead, AC simply pretended that Athlone, as Inter-lookalikes, were the dark enemy and drew inspiration from that to claim the tie with late, late goals at the San Siro.

It may seem a silly notion today with advertising everywhere you look, but I remain convinced that Athlone could have easily chalked up a 3-0 or even 4-0 win on the strength of those quirky, mysterious shirts playing on the suspicions and superstitions rattling around fragile Italian minds on a mucky, windswept, uncomfortable pitch. Nobody will ever persuade me otherwise.

Cold War Classic no. 5 – Bulgaria v West Germany, 1984

02 Friday Mar 2018

Posted by denishurley in Cold War Classics, Kit history, Rarities and Oddities

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

adidas, Anderlecht, Bayern Munich, Bulgaria, Germany, Spain, West Germany

  • Given the heavy snowfall of the past few days, it seems like the perfect time for this latest addition to the series – see here for the others, click here for the Pyro On The Pitch blog follow Joey on Twitter here.

Last time on CWC, we featured a game that was more cold weather than Cold War.

This time we focus on both, as we return to showcasing a match between two countries from either side of the Iron Curtain (to be honest, that’s about the extent of the politics in this one), but as we shall see it was also very cold.

Unfortunately, weather statistics for Bulgaria in 1984 are not readily available online, otherwise I would have definitely consulted them for this article. But the chilliness was self-evident by the attire worn by players on both sides as Bulgaria hosted West Germany for a friendly on February 15 of that year, proving that, regardless of ideology, all humanity is still subject to Mother Gaia’s harsh will.

Before we get to that, it is worth noting that of the three occasions the two sides would meet on Bulgarian soil in the 1980s (’80, ’84 and ’89), the hosts would wear their traditional away strip of red shirts, green shorts and red socks every time, leaving the West Germans free to use their first choice white and black.

In 1975, their last meeting before the 80s, Bulgaria had worn their usual white home shirts, green shorts and red socks, with West Germany in their away green and white, and this was again the case when the fixture would come up in 1995 (albeit with Bulgaria now in white socks).

So, the three 80s games stand out, particularly as Bulgaria otherwise usually wore their normal first strip at home in this period. The West Germans themselves had a habit of often wearing their away kit when playing Turkey at home in this era, but, whether cases like these are examples of some sort of friendly gentleman’s agreement, superstition or just coincidence based on other factors remain to be seen. Incidentally, the two other games in the 80s played between the two in Germany had also seen Bulgaria in their red/green/red, giving West Germany a 5-0 sweep in terms of home and away kits worn for the decade.

The 1980 game, a World Cup qualifier in December, set the stage for what was to come in 1984 as snow could be seen in the areas surrounding the pitch. But, either it wasn’t really too cold that day, or else footballers were still harder in 1980 than their counterparts four years later, as the players wore what they normally would for any match.

GermanyBulgaria1980.png

As we saw in CWC 4 though, a precedent for players wearing extra gear to keep warm in cold weather had already long been set. And while this was originally restricted to tracksuit bottoms for goalkeepers (whose position inherently means they won’t be able to keep as warm during a game as the outfield players who run more, so fair enough), by the 80s this had graduated to leggings being worn liberally by outfielders on particularly cold occasions.

The decision to wear leggings was of course up to the discretion of the individual player, based either on how he was clearly not very hard, or how cold it got. But eventually, players became so soft (I’m joking, all footballers and their practices from the 80’s and before are of course infallibly heroic) or the weather was so unbearable that entire squads were at it. In these instances, much like baselayers today, leggings effectively became part of kit. After all, you couldn’t have different players running around in different coloured leggings, it would be confusing for all involved.

Who knows when the first time a starting 11 all wore leggings, but when Bulgaria would take to the field on that day in 1984, in the fantastically named Yuri Gagarin Stadium in Varna, they would NEARLY place themselves in the history books as an example of a fully leg-covered team, as a couple of players did go without.

Bulgaria-1994-adidas-away-kit-Germany-leggings-01

For most, classic black was uniformly used to compliment the otherwise red and green strip with white trim. The shirt itself is a vintage Adidas template, but one that seemed slightly outdated by this stage as a similar design had been used by the likes of Czechoslovakia as early as 1980.

West Germany, still in a phase of using Adidas shirts with Erima shorts, showed more gumption as none of their players wore leggings. However, a couple of things did stand out. For one, there were two variations of this particular shirt (also worn since 1980) and both were on show. Most players wore the regular version, featuring a black collar over the white v-neck of the shirt.

West-Germany-adidas-1984-heimtrikot-Bulgaria-01

The jersey of captain Karl Heinz Rummenigge was more of a round-neck, with the black part of the collar coming across the top. It was actually identical to the collar of Adidas goalkeeper shirts at the time, including West Germany’s. This was was particularly appropriate given the other main thing – in the apparent absence of anything else, or indeed preparation for the conditions, Rummenigge can clearly be seen wearing a pair of cumbersome, presumably borrowed goalkeeper gloves, thus achieving an altogether surreal look which baffles the brain’s preconceived perception that such gloves are only worn with goalkeeper kits in this dimension [MOJ note – we’ve had to guess as to the design of the gloves – we’ve gone with a style which West Germany goalkeeper Harald Schumacher was using at the time, Reusch but also featuring the adidas trefoil].

West-Germany-adidas-1984-heimtrikot-Bulgaria-Rummenigge-handschuhen-01

When West Germany would next play two weeks later against Belgium, Bernd Schuster would also wear this style of shirt with Rummenigge back in the regular version. Meanwhile, on the same night, Spain would take to a snow-covered pitch away to Luxembourg as an entirely legs covered team. Members of the Bulgarian squad were no doubt sitting at their TVs fuming that, thanks to some of their more warm-blooded colleagues, they had squandered the opportunity to achieve this first. The Spanish also used black for their leggings, perfectly complementing their black socks, pleasingly interrupted by the Spanish flag colours

Spain-1984-Le-Coq-Sportif-camiseta-leggings-01

The era became a golden age for leggings both on and off the pitch. With more use in football, the issue of what colour leggings to wear would arise as not everyone could wear black (although black does go with everything) and what of leggings clashes if two particularly frigid sides face off? These questions would be answered in 1985, as the USSR took Norway in a game that could possibly be considered the apex of 80s leggings-wearing in football, but that is a story for another Cold War Classic on another cold day (don’t worry, we’ll be giving the cold weather theme a rest next time).

Much like hooliganism in England, leggings use in football would decrease by the 90s although it never truly disappeared and would see a resurgence in fashion in the modern age. But what of outfield players wearing goalkeeper gloves? This practice is probably seen by some as even more abhorrent than wearing leggings (with some traditionalists no doubt still lamenting the need for goalkeeper gloves at all). It has now been stamped out due to the widespread availability of regular gloves for footballers.

Yes, we have gotten away from Bulgaria quite a bit here and I’m sorry (they will also return to the CWC), but to kind of take this back around to where we started, there is one more documented case which shows that goalkeeper gloves on outfielders may in fact have been somewhat of a West German phenomenon.

On March 4, 1987, in a game that was itself noteworthy for Bayern Munich changing to different shirts for the second half, defender Hans Pflügler would represent his side in a European Cup quarter-final clash against Anderlecht combing both looks we have talked about: leggings AND goalkeeper gloves. Team-mate Andreas Brehme wore similar.

Rummenigge was also playing for Bayern that day and so may well have given them the idea.

Bayern-Munchen-1987-heimtrikot-Anderlecht-leggings-gloves-01
Bayern-Munchen-1987-heimtrikot-Anderlecht-leggings-gloves-second-half-01

As with Bulgaria in 1984, we don’t have the temperature for Munich in March 1987. Although some may have sneered, Pflügler was a very warm boy that day, which in fact enabled him put his name on the score sheet and help his side to a 5-0 victory as they progressed to the final – which also provided a noteworthy kit incident.

 

Liverpool blue and Everton red?

01 Monday Jan 2018

Posted by denishurley in Clashes, Goalkeepers, Rarities and Oddities

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Tags

adidas, Everton, Le Coq Sportif, Liverpool, Umbro

As we said in the piece looking at the seasons where Arsenal had four goalkeeper shirts, netminders have too many options nowadays.

Three options per team is standard, usually in black or an offensive dayglo shade. It’s no surprise to see your keeper clad in varying shades from game to game, unlike the days were green dominated and any change was worthy of comment.

One would think that, with alternative goalkeeper shirts so rare, finding a different colour to green wouldn’t pose a problem, but we’ve found at least two examples where Everton used a red goalkeeper shirt and also two instances of Liverpool using a blue one.

The most high-profile of these is the earliest of the four we’ll look at, Neville Southall’s shirt when Everton beat Rapid Vienna 3-1 in the 1985 European Cup Winners’ Cup final.

Everton-1985-Le-Coq-Sportif-goalkeeper-shirt-red-Cup-Winners-Cup-final-01

It drew such comment that Southall mentioned it in his autobiography, The Binman Chronicles:

The thing people ask me about most regarding the final was my goalkeeper shirt. It was red, a colour many Everton fans consider sacrilegious. But there was an odd logic to me wearing it.

Because Rapid played in green and white stripes I couldn’t wear my usual green, nor white. Black was out because that’s what the the referees played in, and so was blue for obvious reasons.

Yellow was also out because that was only allowed in international matches. Which didn’t leave an awful lot more choice. Later at Everton, I wore orange and pink and I think now you can wear whatever you want.

But back then it was a bit more straightforward: primary colours, which pretty much left red.

Of course, the fact that the game was televised live meant that the red shirt came to wider prominence, as it wasn’t a unique occurrence:

We had a red goalie shirt v Panathinaikos in European Cup in 1971 and certainly wore red whenever we played WBA in the late 70s/early 80s when they wore the green and yellow stripes as per this vid https://t.co/qI3AAdjF2T

— Chris Gilmore (@yourmangilly) January 2, 2018

It’s interesting to note above that, while the shirt was made by Le Coq Sportif, there was a bit of guerrilla marketing for Southall’s glove sponsor Sondico on the collar.

Five years later, he would again wear red, though without being as limited in his options.

Sheffield Wednesday had a green and white change kit in 1988-89 and 1989-90 and in the first of those seasons, Southall wore a yellow version of Umbro’s ‘Hampden’ shirt when the Owls came to Goodison Park.

The Hampden was also available in grey but in January 1990, Southall used red against Wednesday.

Everton-1989-Umbro-goalkeeper-shirt-red-Sheffield-Wednesday-01

Across Stanley Park, the opposite occurred twice, too.

In Liverpool’s first season with adidas, 1985-86, Bruce Grobbelaar mainly wore yellow and occasionally white, but green – in the diagonally striped style – was favoured for 1986-87.

In the summer of 1987, Liverpool played Celtic in Tommy Burns’ testimonial at Celtic Park. It was one of the last times that the 1985-87 home kit was worn – it seems anachronistic to see John Barnes wearing it – and due to the large amounts of green on the Celtic kit, Grobbelaar changed, to a blue shirt.

Liverpool-1987-adidas-blue-goalkeeper-Grobbelaar-01

Oddly, Liverpool also played Bayern Munich that summer, in Dieter Hoeness’s testimonial, and Grobbelaar wore blue in that game too.

The new home kit was used when Liverpool played the Ireland Olympic team in August 1987 – no pictures of Grobbelaar are available but presumably he wore it then as well but this time the goalkeeper was in white:

Grobbelaar wore white against the Irish Olympic Team

— Eddie Kehoe (@EddieKehoe) January 2, 2018

Like Southall in red, Liverpool goalkeepers in blue wasn’t a one-off, either. When the new Premier League began in 1992-93, a noticeable new departure was that match officials now wore green shirts, rather than black.

It meant that black kits were now an option – one that Manchester United would exploit for 1993-94 – but it also resulted in the league’s goalkeepers having to deviate away from their traditional colour.

As in 1991-92, Liverpool’s alternative goalkeeper shirt was yellow, but it couldn’t be worn against Sheffield United’s yellow away kit at Anfield for the second game of the season on August 19.

It meant that David James took to the field in a top the same as Arsenal’s first-choice goalkeeper shirt that season.

Liverpool-1992-1993-adidas-blue-goalkeeper-shirt-Sheffield-United-01

Liverpool won 2-1, but clearly there were misgivings about the blue shirt, as it was the only time it was seen. Instead, a grey and black version of the shirt was pushed into action when required.

And, as far as we know, in the intervening 25 and a half years, Merseyside goalkeepers have not worn their rivals’ colours.

Ireland’s quick kit change before playing Italy at USA 94

01 Wednesday Nov 2017

Posted by denishurley in Change kits, Clashes, Football kits, Rarities and Oddities

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Tags

adidas, Andy Townsend, Italy, Republic of Ireland

Eddie O’Mahony has the one of the most comprehensive collections of Republic of Ireland shirts – check his site for proof.

You can now pre-order 40 Shades of Green, the excellent book Eddie has put together charting his collection and a publication to which I am proud to have contributed. To mark this auspicious occasion, here is an excerpt from Andy’s Game, a diary of the USA 1994 World Cup by Ireland captain Andy Townsend.

In that World Cup, Ireland ended up wearing their white adidas away kit in three of their four games, but they were ready to wear it before the other one too, their opener against Italy:

Republic-of-Ireland-1994-adidas-away-kit-shirt-01

15.45: ‘Fifteen minutes to kick-off,’ reminds the talking clock. It’s time for the final act and I remove the t-shirt I’ve worn to stretch and warm up. Boots polished, socks and shorts and shin-guards in place, I slip my jersey over my shoulders and Mick hands me the arm band. An official pops his head around the door: ‘Okay gentlemen, we’re ready.’ And with this a huge roar goes up, ‘Come onnn,’ as we circle the dressing-room, slapping each other down the shoulder, wishing each other the best and shaking hands. I make for the door at the head of the string. Jack, who hasn’t really said that much, is waiting with a final word.

‘Good luck, Andy, Good luck, son. All the best.’

‘Cheers, Jack.’

We’re ready now. I turn with a final chant, ‘Let’s go for it lads,’ and step out. A FIFA official, waiting outside in the corridor, approaches to guide us towards the tunnel, but as soon as he sees our strip, a look of horror comes over his face. ‘You can’t walk out there dressed in white [socks], green [shorts] and white [shirts] – Italy have just gone out wearing white, blue and white. You’ll have to change.’

At first I think he’s joking. ‘Can we not just change the shirts,’ I ask, ‘and wear white [socks]-green-green?’

‘No, the socks…everything must be changed.’

It would be another ten years – the 2004 game away to France – before Ireland would actually wear the combination Townsend suggested, green shirts and shorts with white socks, a green version of Chelsea.

16.00: Pandemonium in the dressing-room. After one and a half hours of twiddling our thumbs, we’ve got one and a half minutes to strip and change our kit. Charlie, our kit man, literally dives into the skip, emptying it furiously – shirts, shorts and socks flying around the room.

‘Twenty-one? Who’s twenty-one?’

‘Yeah, over here.’

‘Thirteen?’

‘Who’s got my shorts, anyone seen an eight?’

‘Mine’s a seven, Charlie.’

The scene of manic chaos is just too much for Jack. Turning his rage on Charlie, he completely blows a fuse: ‘What the fucking hell is going on? What are we doing in the wrong kit?’ Not that it’s poor Charlie’s fault (I fear he might suffer a heart attack) – he never gets his kit wrong.”

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Ray Houghton’s early goal gave Ireland their first win in a World Cup game and, with white shirts used against Mexico, Norway and the Netherlands, this would prove to be the final outing for the short-lived shirt, as Umbro took over the Ireland contract that autumn.

They would remain until this year, when New Balance became the new suppliers:

 

Republic-of-Ireland-2017-new-balance-home-kit-shirt-01
Republic-of-Ireland-2017-new-balance-away-kit-shirt-01

Three stripes and you’re out!

03 Thursday Aug 2017

Posted by denishurley in Gaelic games, Inconsistencies, Kit history, Not Football, Rarities and Oddities

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adidas, Cork, Cork GAA

  • This article first appeared in the Evening Echo on August 2, 2017

Nowadays, the Cork GAA kit, like so many others, features three stripes down the sleeves and on the shorts.

From time to time, one sees the question raised on social media as to why playing strips manufactured by Dublin firm O’Neills feature the trademark which one would normally associated with adidas.

Basically, they earned the right to do this after adidas took them to court in 1980 but it was held that O’Neills had used the motif first in Ireland and therefore could continue to do so. The stripes weren’t overly common on kits in the 1990s, but since the mid-2000s O’Neills have made them pretty much ubiquitous. This summer marks the 40th anniversary of their first appearance in the wider Irish sporting consciousness.

***

The stripes’ first appearance on a GAA jersey was in 1976 as Cork donned an adidas set for the Munster final replay against Kerry. It was a move made without sanctioning from the board and adidas’s large trefoil logo had to be covered up.

Cork-1976-adidas-jerseys-Kerry-Páirc-Uí-Chaoimh-01

In his autobiography, Rebel, Rebel, legendary former Cork player and manager Billy Morgan mentioned how there was an investigation into the incident by the board but no punishment other than an instruction not to let things happen again.

However, the following summer, 40 years ago, the team again found themselves at odds with the board over gear, with the episode dubbed ‘the three-stripe affair’.

Michael O’Connell, the managing director of Three Stripe International, adidas’s Irish licensees, and his employee Pat Moore made an approach to Dinny Allen early in 1977, and Morgan went to meet them on behalf of the team.

Adidas were offering jerseys, shorts, boots and tracksuits, only asking for a photograph of the team wearing the clothing for promotional purposes. While Morgan said that the jerseys were a non-runner, he had no problem with the rest and he asked the team’s selectors to seek permission from the board.

The GAA rules, then and now, stipulated that on-field clothing had to be of Irish manufacture. Three-Stripe International ticked this box as they made their clothing in Cork, but any form of branding was prohibited and there was a general air of suspicion regarding anything new.

With no word from the board, the team decided to wear the shorts, featuring the three stripes and adidas’s marque, in a tournament game against Mayo in London. Morgan relates how selector Paddy O’Driscoll tried to prevent him giving out the shorts to his team-mates but coach Donie O’Donovan over-ruled him.

Cork’s championship opener saw them play Clare, and the team had agreed to come on to the pitch wearing the adidas tracksuit tops and then pose for a team photograph. The Banner were easily seen off to set up a final meeting with Kerry but, before that, at a training session Morgan was summoned to a meeting of the board executive.

With advice from Dr Con Murphy to keep his head, Morgan kept cool as a board member went on to the attack. “Ye footballers are always the same, always causing trouble, always looking for something,” he was told.

Morgan made the point that most other counties got gear and the meeting ended with Frank Murphy expressing the hope that things could be sorted amicably. There was no further communication, so Morgan and the team assumed all was fine, but on the Wednesday before the Munster final, chairman Donal O’Sullivan informed them that a letter was on the way threatening suspension if the adidas gear was worn.

The team had a kickabout on the Saturday and afterwards, Donie O’Donovan said to go along with the board and wear plain white shorts. “We’ll beat Kerry and then on Tuesday night I’ll lead ye into the board and we’ll give them what’s what. I’ll leave it up to ye but I’ll back ye 100 percent.”

Team captain Jimmy Barry-Murphy backed up that view and so did Morgan but other players felt differently. The debate went back and forth, and it looked as if O’Donovan’s idea would be followed.

As Morgan put it, “Then, lo and behold, who should open up only a selector. ‘As far as I can see, ye are only creeping’ and crawlin’ trying to get free gear.’” That was the trigger for JBM to stand up and say that the three stripes would be worn.

On the train to Killarney, board officials tried to get him to change his mind and when the team reached the hotel they were implored to wear the plain shorts, but they held firm and took to the field in the adidas ones.

Cork-1977-jerseys-Kerry-adidas-shorts-three-stripes-01

While Cork led by six points early on, Kerry rallied and in the end were convincing winners on a scoreline of 3-15 to 0-9. In the week after the game came the decision that the team were to be suspended en masse by the board. Crucially though, they were only suspended from playing football for Cork, meaning Barry-Murphy and Brian Murphy were part of the Cork hurling side which won the All-Ireland. The players weren’t prevented from playing with their clubs either, so the ban was of little material effect.

There were meetings, but no resolution to the impasse. Eventually, the players relented just before the start of the national league in October, signing a letter stating that the adidas gear would be worn.

“We felt we couldn’t win, and we backed down,” Morgan wrote.

I suppose it was in the back of our minds that we had relatively short playing careers. If we had a Dónal Óg Cusack, we might have kept it going. Maybe if we kept at that battle back in 1977, the troubles of the last few years would have been avoided.

We weren’t cut out for GAA politics and probably lacked the confidence of the players of today. There was no union to support us and the players weren’t yet properly organised at a national level.

And, anyway, we just wanted to play football.

Ireland’s many kit changes in 1986 World Cup qualifying campaign

08 Saturday Apr 2017

Posted by denishurley in Football kits, Kit history, Rarities and Oddities

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O'Neills, Republic of Ireland

Football kit expert John Devlin is not prone to exaggeration. Therefore, when he mentions three times in True Colours 2 that the Republic of Ireland’s kits during their tenure with O’Neills featured more than a few variations, you know that something strange was afoot.

A quick glance at the Ireland Soccer Shirts Museum, curated by Eddie O’Mahony, confirms this, and it was correspondence with Eddie which prompted further research. He had added another O’Neills Ireland away shirt from the mid-80s to his collection and was seeking to nail down which exact game it was and that in turn led us to examine the eight matches in the country’s unsuccessful qualifying campaign for the 1986 World Cup in Mexico.

Placed in a group with Denmark, Norway, Switzerland and the USSR, Ireland wore green in their four home games and changed to white for all of their trips abroad (meaning that, with the other four countries favouring red, 16 of the 20 group games were red v white, with Ireland’s home games – green v white – the exceptions).

Incredibly, though, each of the eight games featured a unique shirt style for Ireland, and even then there were further variations within matches. Here is the story in full.

Ireland began with a home game against the USSR in September of 1984 and while Mickey Walsh’s second-half goal would give them victory, it was one of just two games they would win.

The game was the last competitive outing for what is regarded as the ‘classic’ O’Neills Ireland kit, featuring alternating gold and white pinstripes, and three-stripe collar motif.

O'Neills-Republic-of-Ireland-1984-home-jersey-USSR

However, Mark Lawrenson wore a long-sleeved shirt with two differences to what his team-mates had on.

It had a v-neck rather than a collar – similar to what the team would wear in friendlies against England and Spain in 1985 in the pinstriped style’s final outings – and also the pinstripes were laid out slightly differently rather than being centred.

While Liam Brady switched from short to long sleeves in the second half, his shirt had the same collar as the short-sleeved shirt did.

O'Neills-Republic-of-Ireland-1984-home-jersey-USSR-Lawrenson

Ireland’s next game was away to Norway in October and a white version of the pinstripes was used. Unlike the usual strip, though, they also featured on the sleeves and the back of the shirt. The socks were also different, reminiscent of the Le Coq Sportif style.

O'Neills-Republic-of-Ireland-1984-away-jersey-Norway

Ireland lost that game in Oslo 1-0 and a month later they would also suffer defeat in Scandanavia, going down 3-0 to Denmark.

This was the more usual style, with the raglan sleeves not featuring the pinstripes. The shorts had three white stripes rather than two white and one gold, while the socks were plain. The shield housing the shamrocks on the crest was also removed.

O'Neills-Republic-of-Ireland-1984-away-jersey-Denmark

It would be a full six months before the next qualifier, at home to Norway, though Ireland did play friendlies in between, with an all-green look seen at home to Italy in February 1985.

The Norway game at Lansdowne Road on May 1, 1985 saw Ireland play in a kit unlike any seen before or since. Seeking a change in fortunes – they had had four losses and a draw in all games since beaten the Soviet Union – the FAI asked O’Neills to come up with something different, and the manufacturers did that.

A gold band across the chest called to mind the style favoured by Kerry, the most successful county in Gaelic football. Ironically, at the time, Kerry were the only county playing Gaelic games who didn’t wear O’Neills as they had a deal with adidas, but strict GAA rules prevented their logo from being shown (see how it’s taped over on the subs’ tops here).

The narrower stripes added to the somewhat-continental look, while the gold socks were another completely new departure as was the crest. In and of itself, it wasn’t a bad kit at all, but it failed to inspire a turnaround in fortunes and it was retired after the 0-0 draw.

O'Neills-Republic-of-Ireland-1985-home-jersey-NorwayAs mentioned above, the pinstripes returned for one last time against Spain in Flower Lodge in Cork at the end of May and then, at the start of June, a simpler kit was worn for the 3-0 win at home to Switzerland.

Stylistically, it was quite similar to the new adidas kit that Liverpool had worn for the first time in the ill-fated European Cup final against Juventus at Heysel in Brussels, and it retained the newer crest and neck from the shirt against Norway.

The two-bar sock style was the same as that which O’Neills gave to their Gaelic games teams, while the right sleeve featured something very unusual – perhaps the first-ever (and perhaps only) example of sponsorship on an international shirt in a competitive game.

O'Neills-Republic-of-Ireland-1985-home-jersey-Switzerland-01

It’s not easy to discern, but there was a logo on the right sleeve, that of Bord Fáilte, the Irish tourist board (now known as Fáilte Ireland – ‘fáilte’ is the Irish for ‘welcome’). That fact that it was a shamrock might have meant that Ireland avoided censure, but its inclusion was an isolated incident.

The next game was the return fixture against the Swiss in September. Here, a reversal of the new home kit was worn, albeit without a contrasting neck, with the previous shamrock crest remained.

O'Neills-Republic-of-Ireland-1985-away-jersey-Switzerland

In Moscow in October, we almost had the only example of the same kit being worn twice in the campaign, but there had to be one change and it was on the shoulder stripes, with the inclusion of one gold between the two green.

O'Neills-Republic-of-Ireland-1985-away-jersey-USSR

That was another loss, 2-0, officially confirming that Ireland wouldn’t qualify. There was one game remaining, at home to Denmark in November, in many ways a watershed game for the country.

The 4-1 loss itself wasn’t all that memorable, but the game proved to be manager Eoin Hand’s last game in charge. Again, the kit was almost the same, but ‘new’ crest was jettisoned and the shamrocks returned.

O'Neills-Republic-of-Ireland-1985-home-Denmark

Ireland’s next game would be a friendly at home to Wales in March 1986. By then, Jack Charlton would be in charge and adidas kit would be worn. But that’s a story for another day.

Rugby: the world in union, 1986

08 Sunday Jan 2017

Posted by denishurley in internationalrugbyshirts.com, Not Football, Rarities and Oddities, Rugby

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British & Irish Lions, Five Nations, Overseas Unions, Rest of The World, Rugby Union

One of the books we received for Christmas was the autobiography of former Ireland rugby union team captain Donal Lenihan, My Life in Rugby.

Lenihan’s career as a player and a manager traversed many important milestones in the sport and he gives due consideration to these rather than just providing a slew of match reports.

In 1986, for example, Lenihan would have expected to have been included in the planned British & Irish Lions tour to South Africa, but the tour didn’t go ahead as global opposition to the Apartheid system in South Africa.

As a compromise of sorts the Lions did play one game that year, against a Rest of The World selection (consisting of players from Australia, France, New Zealand and, controversially, South Africa) at the Cardiff Arms Park on April 16 as part of the centenary celebrations of the International Rugby Football Board (IRFB, later IRB and now World Rugby).

In his book, Lenihan notes that, while the players chosen received Lions blazers, it isn’t considered an official Test match, whereas a 2005 game against Argentina at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff is. Naturally, Lions’ classic kit – the red shirt representing Wales, white shorts (England) and navy socks (Scotland) with green tops (Ireland) – was worn.

Being kit-nerds, we wondered what ‘The Rest’ wore, and then our hearts were set positively racing when Lenihan mentioned a second centenary celebration game at Twickenham in London three days later. In this match, the countries which competed in the Five Nations would take on an ‘Overseas Unions’ side – effectively, the France players were switching sides from the Cardiff clash.

In the first game, ‘The Rest’ wore white jerseys – not representative of any of the countries, though the blue collar was presumably for France. The shorts were black (New Zealand’s colour) while the socks were green with gold turnovers (South Africa and Australia respectively). The crest was a map of the world in a rugby ball with laurel leaves and an inscription marking the occasion.

british-irish-lions-rugby-jersey-shirt-1986-cardiff
rest-of-the-world-rugby-shirt-jersey-1986-cardiff

The Rest won that game 15-7 in the rain and the visiting side would also triumph in better conditions in London, 32-13 the final score.

In the latter tie, both sides would have the IRFB centenary crest on one-off jersey styles. While the programme cover acknowledged that the blue of Scotland was darker than that of France, The Five Nations’ jersey didn’t and – as on the Lions kit – the green of Ireland was once again under-represented (we’re not bitter, honestly).

The kit of the Overseas Unions perhaps prioritised Australia and New Zealand above South Africa, but as the Springboks were in an exile that lasted from 1985-91, that’s perhaps fair enough.

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overseas-unions-rugby-jersey-shirt-1986-twickenham
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