Tag Archives: Newcastle United

Triangles and stripes – Umbro’s goalkeeper offerings 1991-93

10 Sunday Jun 2018

Posted by in Goalkeepers

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The intention was to write a follow-up to this piece sooner than now, but plans never seem to work out perfectly.

As we saw, Andy Goram wore a red Hampden shirt – at Hampden Park – when Scotland played Romania in October 1991. It was a fitting send-off, as it had been superseded as the primary Umbro goalkeeper design by then.

Sartorially, the 1991 FA Cup final is remembered for Tottenham Hotspur’s new kit and the return to baggy shorts. That meant that, even allowing for his penalty save from Gary Lineker, Mark Crossley’s shirt was somewhat overlooked.

In a more turquoisey shade of green, it featured a series of black triangles arranged into a v-shape, trimmed in a shade of dark red. Incidentally, Crossley wore padded white shorts which were different to those of his team-mates.

Nottingham-Forest-1991-1992-Umbro-goalkeeper-shirt-Crossley-padded-shorts-01

Come the autumn, it would be rolled out across most of Umbro’s contracts – Celtic, Everton and Tottenham were given bespoke styles.

 

 

In addition to the green, yellow and purple variations were commonly seen.

Pavel Srnicek tended to favour it at Newcastle (note how low the Newcastle Breweries star had to be) while it gained primacy at Nottingham Forest in the spring of 1992 – Crossley wore it in the Rumbelows Cup semi-final win over Tottenham Hotspur and, after he got injured, deputy Andy Marriott had it for that final loss to Manchester United and the ZDF Cup final win over Southampton.

When Crossley returned to the team, he was in yellow as they won 2-1 at Old Trafford to dent Manchester United’s title hopes (a game where Ryan Giggs wore 10 for United, incidentally).

There was also a purple variant. Kevin Hitchcock of Chelsea used it quite a bit – referees seemingly having no problem with its closeness to blue, and Erik Thorstvedt of Tottenham also had to call upon that option away to Sheffield Wednesday.

Spurs’ two goalkeeper shirts were yellow, which clashed with their own away kit, and blue, which obviously couldn’t be used against Wednesday.

 

We said three colours were seen on-pitch above, but there is a tantalising possibility that there was a fourth, blue, option.

The easiest explanation is that that’s a picture of a green shirt and it looks blue – but the doubt comes from the fact that the green had a white number. Unfortunately, we have no evidence of John Lukic wearing it.

STOP PRESS: Proof has come that the blue was worn, by Andy Rhodes of Dunfermline Athletic:

Dunfermline-Athletic-1991-1992-Umbro-goalkeeper-shirt-Andy-Rhodes-01

In contrast to the Hampden, which had a durable lifespan of three years or so, this successor (dubbed ‘Premier’ in an American Umbro catalogue, but we’re not sure if that was the ‘real’ name) was supplanted after just a season.

The same three base colours were used, albeit with slight shade differences, with chalkstripes instead of the triangles. However, a big change was that, with match officials in the new Premier League wearing green instead of black, yellow was the most popular goalkeeper shirt.

 

 

 

 

You’ll notice that the crests were now housed in shields. Umbro had employed a retro design feel to their new outfield shirts, and each goalkeeper’s shirt was the exact same as the shield his team-mates had on their new shirts.

With clubs who had new homes – Villa, Ipswich, Forest and Sheffield United – the club colours matched quite well, while the new aways of Chelsea and Oldham used the same palette and so they matched too.

However, Man City’s new change kit was purple, while Sheffield Wednesday’s was yellow and black.

That looked fine when Chris Woods wore his own yellow shirt, but when Wednesday had to change he generally donned purple, while green was used in an early-season Coca-Cola Cup game (officials in the cups still wore black), before Wednesday secured Sanderson as sponsors.

 

Wednesday made it to the league cup final, where they played Arsenal. Both sides wore the same special inscription on their shirts, and, instead of the shield crest, Woods had exactly the same Umbro logo and crest as the rest of the team – who also had the Sanderson wordmark in black, as on the away kit, rather than usual red.

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Again, Hitchcock was quite often seen in purple as well.

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Obviously, the purple wasn’t suitable for Aston Villa’s Nigel Spink or Mark Bosnich when the yellow wasn’t available, so green was allowed. Incidentally, Manchester United had changed to Umbro in the summer of 1992 and Peter Schmeichel had a green shirt too but the extra colours on it meant that it was allowed in the league, except at home to Liverpool.

In the new Division 1 of the Football League, Derby County and Newcastle United also had green as the officials there were still in black too. Peter Shilton had left Derby by this time – whereas he had no problem wearing Umbro for England, with the Rams he generally wore an Uhlsport 544 shirt.

 

The previous design still retained some use, though. When Spurs went to Sheffield Wednesday early in the season, Ian Walker wore green this time rather than purple. Incidentally, it featured the updated Umbro logo with capped wordmark.

Tottenham-Hotspur-Spurs-1992-1993-Umbro-green-goalkeeper-shirt-Sheffield-Wednesday-01

That was in September, but prior to that, there must have been a delay in the arrival of the new shirts at Wednesday’s neighbours Sheffield United.

On the opening day of the season, they hosted Manchester United and goalkeeper Simon Tracey wore a yellow 1991-92 shirt, with Football League sleeve patches and, oddest of all, some triangles missing.

Sheffield-United-1992-1993-Umbro-goalkeeper-shirt-yellow-Simon-Tracey-01

Sheffield Wednesday also reached the FA Cup final, with Arsenal again the opponents.

As with Crossley two years previously, Umbro gave Woods a new design, but after the replay defeat he wouldn’t wear it again as the Owls signed a deal with Puma, and while it would see some use – Packie Bonner of Celtic wearing it in yellow while Chelsea’s Dimitri Kharine wore a red version in 1994-95, a different Umbro style was favoured in 1993-94.

We may look at that in a future article, if we can learn how to draw it.

The evolution of adidas goalkeeper shirts – Part 10

21 Saturday Apr 2018

Posted by in Goalkeepers, Kit history

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  • See previous modules, and other goalkeeping articles, here.

We did say in the last entry in this series, Part 9 back in December, we did say that this edition would go up as far as the 1998 World Cup, but once again we reckoned without the wide variety of adidas goalkeeper shirts. At this rate of progress, we may catch up with reality by the end of 2021.

This piece will look at the 1995-96 and 1996-97 seasons, though not exhaustively – some shirts seen in 96-97 didn’t come to wider prominence until 1997-98 and so will feature in Part 11.

The summer of 1995 saw adidas’s three main UK contracts – Liverpool, Newcastle United and Rangers – given a new style, which appeared in three colourways in Britain.

Newcastle had the green/purple and grey/light blue, with different iterations of the Newcastle Brown Ale logo. The Magpies’ outfield home shirt had the oval and the away had the circular, and while each goalkeeper top had one version, they weren’t always worn with the corresponding outfield jersey.

Newcastle goalkeeper Shaka Hislop preferred to wear the same shorts and socks as his team-mates while Pavel Srnicek had his own, slightly longer, set with a number 1 on the right leg. Both the number and the left leg featured an adidas trefoil logo.

Rangers also had the grey/blue goalkeeper shirt, as well as a yellow/orange version.

Liverpool – in their final season with adidas for a decade – had the yellow/orange too, with Carlsberg rendered in two ways, and the green/purple.

This style wasn’t seen too much in continental Europe – another article very soon will look at a notable appearance in a UEFA Cup tie – but there were some American variations.

During River Plate’s successful 1996 Copa Libertadores campaign, goalkeeper Germán Burgos not only wore a version which had purple as the main colour, the green was a different shade – and he also had a version with the stripes coming from the right.

The pattern was larger on those shirts than on the ones seen in Britain, as it was on the shirt of Adrián Chávez of Club América in Mexico – but, just in case you couldn’t see it, he had it on his shorts too (thanks to Charles Pulling for bringing the River and América examples to our attention).

Club-America-1996-adidas-camiseta-portero-Adrian-Chavez-01.png

Back in Europe, one style seen on the continent which didn’t make its way to England took its cues from an outfield template released a year previously and used by France, Norway and Spain.

Featuring three ‘stripes’ of diamonds on the right-hand side, Monaco and Stuttgart both had black goalkeeper versions albeit with different accent colours, and we don’t know of any other base colour used.

Bayern Munich made it to the UEFA Cup final in 1996. Having worn the previous Predator style in the first leg against Bordeaux, Oliver Kahn had a new shirt (the outfielders wore a new white away strip) which seemed to be an upgrade, though on closer inspection it seems to have had anatomical inspiration.

It was also worn by Argentina’s Pablo Cavallero at that summer’s Olympics, but it never came to widespread prominence.

Bayern-Munich-1995-1996-torwart-trikot-Kahn-UEFA-Cup-Bordeaux-01.png

At Euro 96, adidas outfited five countries and took two distinct approaches with goalkeeper shirts.

For Spain and eventual champions Germany, they kept it plain and classy, with just contrasting black necks and cuffs and three stripes running down the arms.

Spain had a light green, while Germany goalkeeper Andreas Köpke wore a sky-blue top which was, we’d imagine, intended to reference Sepp Maier in his pomp.

For Germany’s semi-final against England, the hosts lost the toss for colours, meaning they lined out in their grey/blue ensemble. Presumably with this in mind, Köpke walked out and stood for the anthems in a darker green shirt – close to gun-metal grey – but by kick-off he was in the blue again. We’re guessing the referee felt it was less of a clash than the blue?

Germany-1996-adidas-torwart-trikot-grau-Kopke-England-01

France, Romania and Turkey had goalkeeper shirts which utilised the same design featured on many new club and country shirts. Five different colours were used.

Bernard Lama of France had a bespoke style, with the three white stripes trimmed in blue and red, while Bogdan Stelea of Romania had a similar, but different, shade of dark green.

Meanwhile, Rüştü Reçber of Turkey wore a different shirt in each of their unsuccessful group games.

That style was another which the British clubs wouldn’t use. Instead, the 1996-97 season saw adidas give Newcastle United, Rangers and new signees Crystal Palace shirts in the simpler Euro 96 style, but also one jersey each in a more ‘out there’ style.

The easier ones first – Newcastle had the same as Spain while the other two had white shirts with blue and red trim. Rangers goalkeeper Andy Goram often preferred to wear the home shorts to give himself an all-white look.

Both Newcastle and Rangers also had alternatives which were almost identical, but with a key element changed. The sleeves were black and the body featured a tequila sunrise variant, with Newcastle having a city skyline silhouette (taken from the Newcastle Brown Ales logo) while Rangers had the facade of Ibrox’s main stand.

Andy Goram wasn’t a fan of the latter, going to great lengths to avoid wearing it (see here), so it was left to his deputies Theo Snelders and Andy Dibble to pair it with varying shorts/socks and pants combinations.

Palace’s other style was based on a design which appears to have been created by adidas for Oliver Kahn. He had it in at least two colourways, with his crest featuring on the collar, shorts and socks.

For Palace’s Kevin Miller and Carlo Nash, the colours were changed to a black, red and yellow combination, while the design was also used by Cork City’s Noel Mooney, in black, green and purple.

That’s it for now. Work has already started on Part 11, so hopefully we can start cutting down on the time between instalments.

Fantasy Kit Friday – Newcastle United, 1995-97

23 Friday Mar 2018

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This one could be divisive – or just plain unpopular.

The 1995-97 Newcastle United adidas shirt – the first made by the German company – is held in very high regard – voted the eighth-best ever a few years ago, for instance. We like it but feel there is an element of The Emperor’s New Clothes about it and rate its Asics predecessor just as highly.

Craig Stoddart is of an even stronger view, as he outlines:

Newcastle United’s adidas home kit from 1995-97 is hugely overrated.

There, I’ve said it. Sacrilege, I know, among kit aficionados to say such a thing, but it’s the truth.

And what’s more, it was not as good as the kit it replaced, the Asics strip used for two seasons from 1993, before adidas became their suppliers and gave them the aforementioned grandad-collared shirts.

Looking back, I would like to have seen adidas give Newcastle the template they used for Bayern Munich (and later Crystal Palace). Over to you, Denis…

A fairly straightforward brief, though still with some decisions to be made. Craig went for a black collar, like the 1993-95 shirt, and we moved the adidas wordmark from its central position on the Bayern shirt to the right breast, where Palace had it.

Bayern and Palace had the three adidas stripes in white but doing them in blue on this wouldn’t have looked great so we went for white trimmed in blue and the same on the socks – white socks like Bayern might have looked nice, but maybe not Newcastle enough (though Ruud Gullit did try to bring about such a change a few years later).

Better than the original, or a complete affront? Let us know…

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Newcastle United: the Asics years

28 Friday Apr 2017

Posted by in Football kits, Kit history

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The first set of Newcastle United kits made by adidas are rightly lauded – for instance, The Football Attic ranked the home as the eighth-greatest shirt of all-time.

Therefore, it’s possibly easy to forget those strips’ predecessors, which are certainly worth remembering. Asics only made the Newcastle kit for two years, 1993-95, but they managed to come up with a great set of outfits.

At the time, the Japanese company was in the midst of a big push in English football – between 1989 and 2001, they also made kits for Aston Villa, Blackburn Rovers, Bradford City, Coventry City, Leeds United, Millwall, Norwich City, Portsmouth, Stoke City and Sunderland. While they are no longer active in Britain, they do still provide for Vissel Kobe in their homeland.

Their arrival at St James’ Park marked the end of the ‘barcode’ shirt, Umbro’s last for the Magpies, and in fact the new Asics kit premiered in the final game of the successful 1992-93 first division campaign, a 7-1 win over Leicester City, with special jumpers worn for the trophy presentation.

Design-wise, the home was pretty much as classy as you could get with black and white stripes, with the black cuffs, trimmed in blue, providing the only adornment while there was a splash of the blue on the collar too.

Newcastle-United-1993-1995-asics-home-kit-shirt-Newcastle-Brown-Ale-Breweries-Blue-Star

In a piece for Planet Football, this shirt was ranked as one of the best of the 1990s by Daniel Storey, though he is slightly incorrect in referring to the ‘Blue Star’ version as merely a special edition.

The famous logo, featuring the Tyne Bridge, represented Newcastle Brown Ale, produced by what was then known as Scottish & Newcastle. With Newcastle Brown predominantly popular in the north-east, this shirt was only worn in home games as a dual sponsorship model was adopted – the name of the more widely-sold McEwan’s Lager appeared for away matches, home televised games and clashes with bigger clubs at St James’, with photos would be more likely to appear in national newspapers.

Basically, it was like Major League Baseball teams wearing their team name on home jerseys and city name on away jerseys. Across 1993-94 and 1994-95, Newcastle played 104 competitive games, wearing black and white stripes in 93 – the McEwan’s logo appeared in 59 of those and the Blue Star in 34.

There were two versions of the McEwan’s. For the first three games of 1993-94 – at home to Tottenham and away to Coventry and Manchester United – it appeared in yellow, with white socks worn in the latter match (notice though how both sock styles featured Blue Stars!).

Such a colour choice made visibility difficult so, for the televised game at home to Everton, the logo was now in white on a black background.

Newcastle-United-1993-1995-asics-home-kit-shirt-McEwans-Lager

Replica version of the Blue Star and McEwan’s editions were available, and Newcastle fan Stephen Best told us that the McEwan’s shirt actually had the black patch placed over the original yellow writing. You can see that this was the case with the player shirts too, as evidenced by wear and tear to Steve Howey’s in the background here:

Howey94

Oddly though, after the Blue Star appeared against Blackburn at St James’, the yellow McEwan’s was back for one final game, away to Ipswich. The white socks were worn in this game too, but this was the only instance of the Toon changing against a team with blue socks.

Incidentally, for a lot of 93-94, there was a difference in the shirt numbers too – the Blue Star had a squarer style, with the McEwan’s featuring the rounded font as which appeared on Asics’ other kits. A newer set of Blue Star shirts later in the season had the rounder numbers.

Apart from the white socks as used at Old Trafford and Portman Road, Newcastle also had white shorts available, and these were seen against Wimbledon in the league in 93-94 and 94-95 (they went there in the Coca-Cola Cup in 1993 too, but because referees in that competition still wore black, Wimbledon played in red and Newcastle could use their home).

Newcastle-United-1993-1995-asics-home-kit-white-short-socks-Wimbledon

With a purely striped kit, where there are no intrusive panels, a change of shorts and socks can be enough to provide differentiation with no need for a change of shirt. Though Newcastle did wear an away kit away to Leeds in 1993-94, Leeds didn’t change at St James’ and the following season both league games saw the two clubs in home kits.

Given that these were times when teams didn’t change kit for no reason, Newcastle’s Asics away and third kits didn’t see much game-time.

The blue away, featuring a brushstroke effect, was worn nine times, and the first of those was the home game against Sheffield Wednesday in 1993-94, when the Owls didn’t have a kit of sufficient differentiation.

Newcastle-United-1993-1995-asics-away-kit-shirt-McEwans-Lager

While the blue on the white home change shorts would have allowed for a cohesive look if worn with the away at Tottenham, for example, this kit wasn’t worn in any other format.

In 1994-95, its only outings in the Premiership were at Spurs and Southampton – they wore black and white stripes in their first 16 league games, though the blue was worn at home to Athletic Bilbao in the UEFA Cup in October.

European involvement and a longer FA Cup run meant that the McEwan’s/Blue Star ratio was a bit more lopsided in 94-95 – 34 to 18 compared to 25 to 16 in 93-94. The beer company’s logo also of course appeared on the third kit.

First seen away to Sheffield Wednesday in March 1994 as Newcastle’s two kits clashed, it was not unlike the Leeds third of that time, an all-green affair with dark blue pinstripes.

Newcastle-United-1993-1995-asics-green-third-kit-shirt

In fact, Hillsborough would be the only place it would appear in a competitive game, as its only other outing was at Wednesday in January 1995. A refreshing contrast to today, when needless third kits receive far more game-time.

The worst colour-clashes across football, rugby, Aussie Rules and Gaelic games

23 Monday Jan 2017

Posted by in Australian Rules Football, Change kits, Clashes, Football kits, Gaelic games, News, Rugby

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It wasn’t a great weekend if you’re the kind of person who likes competing teams to wear distinguishable kits. On Saturday, we had this…

…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.

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.

In 2005-06, Blackburn Rovers somehow forgot to bring their away kit with them to White Hart Lane for their Premier League game against Tottenham Hotspur, whose kit had more navy on it than in almost another other season. Spurs had changed at home to Blackburn at the end of the 2002-03 season when showcasing their 2003-04 away, but that didn’t happen here and the game was allowed to proceed with both in home strips.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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And finally, Gaelic games. As seen at the very top, clashes remain a constant problem, so here are just a select few examples.

Armagh (orange) v Cork (red), All-Ireland U21 football semi-final, 2007:

corkarmagh07

Donegal (gold and green) v Kerry (green and gold), National Football League, 2007:

kerrydonegal-2007

Wexford (purple and gold) v Clare (saffron and blue), National Hurling League, 2006:

clare-wex06

Sixmilebridge (gold and blue) v Clonlara (gold and black), Clare Senior Hurling Championship final, 2015:

clonlara

Kilmoyley (green, gold chevron) v Lixnaw (green, gold hoop), Kerry Senior Hurling Championship, 2002:lixnawkilmoyley

* Of course, we say ‘colour-clash’, but…

Away kits at home in the Premier League era

20 Sunday Nov 2016

Posted by in Change kits, Clashes

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It should be easy, solving kit-clashes, but as our post on the League of Ireland showed, it isn’t always the case.

In that regard, it’s surely a success of sorts that there have only been four occasions since the Premier League began in 1992 that a home team have been forced to wear a change kit? We say ‘forced’ as the PL rules allow teams, in their final home or away game of a given campaign to wear the following season’s kit. Previously, this was only allowed in the last home game and sometimes they decided to showcase the away strip.

The instances of necessary change have involved a lack of foresight on behalf of the away side and/or the officials, in each case.

Early in the 1993-94 season, Newcastle United met Sheffield Wednesday at St James’ Park and the Owls made a mind-boggling decision. Having joined forces with Puma that summer, their home obviously clashed while the largely black away would also have caused problems. So somebody thought that a white shirt with black pinstripes would be suitable. Referee Roger Dilkes did not, and so Newcastle had to wear their blue kit. It didn’t affect them as they won 4-2.

The white shirt would be worn by Wednesday away to Wimbledon in the league on January 15, 1994. Four days before that though, they were away to the Dons in the Coca-Cola Cup, and because the officials still wore black in the domestic cups, teams weren’t allowed to clash with them. As a result, Wimbledon wore white and Wednesday had to wear a yellow fourth kit.

In the 2000 FA Cup, Newcastle were drawn away to Tranmere Rovers, whose home kit was very similar to that Wednesday third shirt, and only had to change their shorts.

Later in 93-94, Blackburn Rovers had to switch when hosting Manchester City (cheers to Michael Dilworth and Ian Herbert for bringing this to our attention):

The previous season, City had worn their purple away kit kit with yellow socks (perhaps the inspiration for the current monstrosity?), but it was far from an acceptable solution:

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City did have a third kit for 1993-94, but it was white, and so this perfect storm caused Blackburn to accommodate them in December ’93.

In 2003, Newcastle were again involved in an instance of a home team changing but this time the Toon were the offenders when they travelled to play Fulham. While they had a perfectly good black away shirt, they decided to travel with their third, which was an inverse of that, black with grey. Referee Barry Knight wasn’t happy with the contrast between that and Fulham’s white, however, so the hosts had to dig out their away as they went 2-0 up only to lose 3-2.

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Aston Villa unwittingly gifted their claret and blue colours to West Ham United, so there was a certain irony to the 2008-09 episode that saw the Villans have to deviate from their home strip when the London side visited them.

West Ham had an all-sky blue away strip that season and brought that with them, having been given the go-ahead by the league. Officials tend not to like sleeve-clashes, however, and referee Rob Styles wasn’t pleased with the set-up. The solution was for Villa to wear their 2007-08 white away shirts, with a blank set numbered by merchandising manager John Greenfield and his staff at a half-hour’s notice. Emile Heskey put Villa ahead in this shirt…

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…but while the first half was ongoing another set was being prepared, with the logo of club partners Acorns being affixed.

Soccer - Barclays Premier League - Aston Villa v West Ham United - Villa Park

West Ham equalised in the second half and the game finished 1-1. Villa manager Martin O’Neill was unhappy with the result and the sartorial shenanigans, something he expanded on in his notes in the programme for Villa’s next home game, against Hull City:

You will be pleased to know we will be playing in our traditional claret and blue shirts tonight.

I’m sure you were surprised to see our players coming out in an all-white kit for our last home match against West Ham a couple of weeks ago, so perhaps I should explain why it happened.

Essentially, the referee was unhappy because the sleeves of West Ham’s all-blue away kit clashed with the sleeves of our shirts, and I had some sympathy with him in that respect. But the Hammers didn’t seem to have any other kit with them – and the ref was adamant the game wouldn’t go ahead unless the clash was resolved.

Reluctantly, we agreed to change, which meant we had to get our third choice white shirts from the Villa Store warehouse. The ironic thing is that the Barclays Premier League had approved West Ham’s change kit but the referee was unhappy on the day. Quite simply, something had to give, or there would have been no game.

For the sake of all the people who were at Villa Park eagerly looking forward to the action, we decided to change, even though the onus is on the away team to provide alternative colours. I have to say, though, that it was an incredible situation, and one I had never previously experienced, either as a player or a manager. It’s certainly something which should have been sorted out days in advance.

Should such a situation ever transpire again, we’d like to see sanctions in the form of the guilty team having to change the next time the two teams meet. This happened in American football in 2003 after an episode involving the San Diego Chargers and Denver Broncos.

NFL rules allow the home side to choose whether they wear their dark or light uniforms, with the opposition going for the opposite. With a few exceptions, most clubs are dark at home but teams in warmer climes do often plump for white in early-season games to counteract the heat.

That’s what the Chargers decided to do for the game at home to the Broncos but the visitors only showed up with their white uniforms and pleaded ignorance or forgetfulness. The league weren’t buying that though and fined them $25,000 as well as giving the Chargers the choice of what to wear for their trip to Colorado later in the season. They availed of the option to wear their usual blue.