blue or white shorts

This years kit makes me appreciate last years kit which really was a thing of beauty and is as close to perfect as you can get for a city kit.

We've gone from David Silva to Jamie Pollock.
 
Gary James said:
Without wanting to start the debate again, I have come across some material from 1977 when City first adopted an all-Blue kit while researching for the next "Big Book Of City." Anyway, there were letters complaining about 'City's awful all-blue strip' (written by someone called B Pullan from Heywood). Pullan asks why the club has ditched white shorts - 'that strip was presentable, smart, neat - and famous.'

The official response came back explaining why City changed to an all-blue: "The reason for the change was the problem encountered with frequent colour clashes resulting in City having to change from white shorts. Our alternate colour was then black shorts and that did not combine at all with blue."

So that was the reason then. Nothing to do with look, style etc. Simply to avoid clashing. Things were different in 77 when the Club tried to wear home colours at away games as well and only change when they absolutely had to, but personally I don't think it holds up that well as an excuse. We could have worn blue & white at home and our away kit on our travels if there was a clash.

Nowadays, short clashes are not viewed in the same way and clubs can even get away with wearing blue shirts when facing City (Everton for example).

Anyway, thought I'd share the reason. Incidentally, the idea of an all blue kit lasted until 1985 when Billy McNeill insisted that they ditched blue shorts because he thought blue and white was well-known as City's kit.
Click to expand...

I went to my first City game in 1975/6, but the 1976/7 season - when we switched to blue shorts - is the first from which I have clear memories of any game. So I basically grew up with City in blue shorts and it seems quite natural for me. What I don't like about the current kit, though, is that we have all sky blue with dark blue numbers etc. When I was a kid, we had all sky blue but only white trim - messing around with bits of dark blue as well was for Coventry, but not us, so I don't like us doing it now.

Blue shorts in themselves aren't a problem for me, though. I hadn't appreciated at the time that the switch was so controversial. When I moved house a while back, I came across my programmes from 1976/7 and, as I recall, there was quite a strong protest. Mr Pullan of Heywood was certainly not an isolated voice.

It's true that from 1975, a rule was brought in that shorts couldn't clash, and when you see footage of away games in the 1975/6 season where we wore black shorts (highlights of the 3-2 win at Arsenal, for instance, which are on youtube), it does look pretty dreadful. But other teams who wore white shorts faced the same problem and didn't change their home strip. I recall Forest and Ipswich switching to all red and all blue respectively when needed, while Villa used to wear sky blue shorts and United black shorts when they had to. None of them adopted those alternate shorts for their home kit, though.

Incidentally, Arsenal refused to change their traditional kit and wear a different colour of shorts, meaning that for years they appeared in an away kit when the shirts didn't clash. That's why, for instance, in the 1978 Cup final, they wore yellow shorts and blue shorts against Ipswich when there was no clash between the Arsenal home shirts and the Ipswich blue shirts. Leeds, meanwhile, adopted an all yellow change kit in the late seventies for every away game (bar Norwich, presumably) rather than be forced to change their shorts from time to time.

Anyway, I see no reason why City couldn't, in 1976, have done what Ipswich or Forest did and produced an alternate set of shorts to be worn away from home if there was a clash of colours. I suspect, then, that the excuse given to Mr Pullan was rather disingenuous. Guessing a little, but when we made the switch to blue shorts originally, the most dominant teams over the previous decade had been Liverpool (all red) and Leeds (all white). I wonder if there wasn't an attempt to imitate them going on.
 
We may well be champions and yet we look like Coventry.

White.
 
Two months in and I still can't take to the new kit, especially the blue shorts. Fortunately, it's not important in the grand scheme of things and we're playing the best football of my life, but this team in this kit without the daft collar and with white shorts would have been sight to behold.
 
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