I know – there is a possibility that there are too many series running on this site – Fantasy Kit Friday, Midweek Mashup and Cold War Classics, to name just three, but there’s always room for another.
This one is focused on when sides met each other on three or more occasions in the one season, with one or both wearing three different kits. The first instance is one of the rare examples when both had three, the meetings of Sheffield Wednesday and Wimbledon in 1993-94.
What makes it somewhat ironic is that the sides’ home kits would probably have functioned well enough against each other – after all, Wednesday’s own away kit this season was all-black with yellow pinstripes.
The sides met at Hillsborough in October 1993, with Wednesday in their home kit and Wimbledon in their all-red change kit – it’s hard to know which was their second strip and which was their third, but in any case the white couldn’t have been used here. The game finished 2-2.
The clubs’ next two clashes came within a few days of each other in January 1994. The Coca-Cola Cup fifth-round draw paired the sides, with Wimbledon at home on January 11 (I’ve kept Wednesday on the left here for comparison purposes).
Having changed from Admiral to Ribero in the summer of 1993, Wimbledon also switched colour, going from royal blue to navy. However, while officials in the new Premier League wore green shirts rather than the traditional black, they remained in black in the domestic cup competitions and clubs were not allowed to clash with them.
That meant Wednesday couldn’t wear their home, and obviously the black away was out too. In September, they had worn white with black pinstripes at Newcastle in the league – meaning Newcastle had to wear blue at home – but that wasn’t an option either. Yellow shirts and shorts were worn with the away socks, as they had been at Bolton Wanderers in an earlier round. The Owls won 2-1.
Just four days later, the sides met again at Selhurst in the Premiership, but visually it was a totally different match-up.
Wimbledon were in their customary navy, which would have clashed with the Wednesday away. Instead of the yellow though, they wore the white and black – which would seem to make that the third shirt, with the yellow classed as the fourth-choice.
The away shorts and socks were used, despite clashing with the Wimbledon elements, as the Dons got revenge, winning 2-1.
The German company didn’t have a monopoly on classy netminder looks, and time constraints are what prevent us from charting more. Part 7 of the adidas series is coming soon, but we will deviate slightly today with a look at an Umbro offering for which we have a lot of affection.
Dubbed ‘Hampden’ in its teamwear catalogues, it appeared in 1988 at a time when goalkeeper shirts were beginning to get busy, but it was very nicely restrained, with two-tone shoulder panels the only excesses. By the time it was superseded in 1991, it appeared almost anachronistic compared to others.
Templates get a bad rap, but we like a design that can be tailored to good effect. The clarity of colour allocation meant that the design could be easily adapted to different schemes, and we have been able to chart five different main colours used by professional teams in Britain.
Of the clubs supplied by Umbro at the time, most seem to have used it apart from Celtic and Everton*, who generally had bespoke designs. The classic green was of course the most popular, as worn by Steve Sutton and Mark Crossley of Nottingham Forest and the likes of Tommy Wright and John Burridge at Newcastle United.
When he was with Wimbledon, Dave Beasant often wore a yellow Spall shirt, most notably in captaining them to the 1988 FA Cup. After an unhappy spell at Newcastle United, he joined Chelsea and wore the yellow version a lot at Stamford Bridge, though he also had another, plainer, shirt.
Theo Snelders of Aberdeen also wore yellow, but with black as a secondary colour rather than navy, swapping positions with the grey. This one also had a contrast neck.
Abtrust took over as sponsors in 1990, with Snelders – a Tom Cruise lookalike – having had JVC on his shirt when they beat Celtic in the 89-90 Scottish Cup final on penalties – fittingly at Hampden Park. The old stadium was fairly rundown by this stage, but, to our mind, there is something very romantic about the look of packed, open terraces.
The blue edition appeared in the Leeds United team pictures for 1988-89 and 1989-90, but the only matchworn instance we can find of it being worn by United was when Mervyn Day donned it in a friendly against Shelbourne of Ireland in the summer of 1991. Had the grey panel been white, it would have worked even better with the Whites’ yellow away shorts.
Beasant also wore it at Newcastle on occasion, while Forest also used it.
The grey shirt wasn’t all that common, either. We had thought that Chris Turner of Sheffield Wednesday wearing an unbadged, unsponsored top was the only sighting…
…but then Frazinho on The Glove Bag forums reminded us that there was also an England example.
In their final game of 1989, the last in the home shirt launched in 1987, England hosted Yugoslavia and Chris Woods and Dave Beasant wore this shirt along with the almost-matching shorts of the kit Peter Shilton wore at the 1986 World Cup.
Despite being the country which played its home games at Hampden, Scotland didn’t use the shirt much. Instead, their first-choice goalkeeper strip from 1988-91 was one which might be described as a cousin of the Hampden, with a different layout of the panels.
The version above was worn by Leighton in all three of Scotland’s games at the 1990 World Cup – despite the fact that they were in the same group as Brazil and Sweden, the red Hampden shirt remained in the kitbag. It had been worn on a few occasions in the qualifiers for Italy,
@museumofjerseys Scotland wore silver shorts n navy socks .In final game Gk used the home gk shorts n home player socks The red/silver/navy is incredible! pic.twitter.com/9cuTOU7QZ9
* Neville Southall of Everton did wear the red and yellow on one occasion each as his bespoke green shirt clashed with Sheffield Wednesday’s away kit in 1988-89 and 1989-90. Thanks to Paul Owens for this info.
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 awaystrip.
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:
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.
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…
…but while the first half was ongoing another set was being prepared, with the logo of club partners Acorns being affixed.
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.
