During this summer’s World Cup [1998] I became a laughing
stock in several discussions with other football fans. Nothing new I hear you
add. But this time it was because I found myself agreeing with Jimmy Hill. You
may remember he made a point after the Rumanians all dyed their hair blonde
that this was a positive thing. It was not only strengthening team spirit he
said, by uniting the squad together in something, but it would even quicken up
their passing ability as they sighted the blonde hair of a colleague out of the
corner of the eye. It was that split second that could make all the difference.
(I can’t remember if Rumania won or lost the game now). A similar debate took
place a couple of seasons ago after a match at the Dell when Manchester
United’s eleventh(?) kit - the grey one - so blended in with the Hampshire
crowd that the United players felt they were looking for a chameleon in a
haystack. Following the break they ran out in a different strip altogether.
They still lost the match and lots of fun was had at their expense. Besides, in the old days George Best had no
problem finding Bobby Charlton and they were in black and white!
However,
if by wearing certain colours speeds up your senses, even by a miniscule,
surely that can only be a good thing for the player on the ball. I’ve been
involved in arranging and playing in weekly football matches during summer
months in Kennington Park for over twenty years. The local youth (and older
ones up to forty) have, on occasions, turned up in droves to participate, and
it has never been our policy to turn people away unless it’s well late into the
game. For a number of years it was a bit of a disorganised shambles with two
dozen players in an assortment of whites, coloureds and boilwashes. And I’m
talking about shirts here - some of my best friends are boilwashes! It’s just
that it can be very confusing trying to work out who is on your side and who is
on the opposing team. Get two players similarly attired and you lose precious
moments thinking before passing and even then sometimes get it wrong.
On
one occasion, a cold September evening about a decade ago in a ridiculous
twenty-a-side match, some bright spark called out for ‘skins’. This basically
means that one side has to remove their shirts to save confusion. No problem on
a baking hot day. But it happened to be my side that went semi-naked, and I
think it might have been then that I thought it necessary to purchase some
coloured bibs for future use. Since then we’ve been playing reds v yellows each
week which makes things so much easier. And even then the naked eye seems to
pick out yellow much more quickly than red when the nights begin to draw in.
I’ve
noticed too over the years that the most popular colour for away shirts (in
midweek matches in particular), and that goes for teams in the top flight as
well as the Isthmian League, is either all white or all yellow. There must be a
reason for this, and surely it is because under floodlights they are surely the
most easily seen.
I was
most surprised to find that the above theory is not as modern or as loony as we
might first think. Whilst doing some research recently I came across this
article from the pen of the popular sportswriter L.V. Manning from A september
1937 edition of the Daily Sketch.
“It has become a habit to think of the great
Herbert Chapman as inventor of most football novelties, but although he was one
of the first to realise jazz stockings might help players to find each other
with passes without looking around to establish identification, their are
other claimants.
But since the first pair brightened the
twilight of a dark November afternoon, stockings became jazzier and jazzier
until this season the Football League had to step in and insist on all clubs
registering both colour and design.
And Bolton Wanderers, I note, have
achieved exclusiveness by the simple process of turning back the clock and
reverting to the old fashioned plain white top with a self colour leg. Probably
wearied of seeing colour blind players pass to the wrong stockings.
It was a lot of ‘bunk’ anyway. Some
players
would
still get the pass to the wrong man if
(1)
he went up and asked for it, (2) wrote a
postcard,
(3) fired a pistol, or (4) rang a
peal
of church bells.”
Judging
from action photographs of
thirties players I assume that what is
referred to above as ‘jazz stockings’ are
the hooped variety that appear to have
become most popular after the Arsenal
took to wearing them.
This article is from October 1998 and originally appeared in the Champion Hill Street Blues fanzine under the pseudonym Graveley Roberts
