Comments on: The Kit Cupboard

By: John Devlin

John Devlin — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 11:01:57 +0000

Jon, thanks for clearing that up.

By: Jon

Jon — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 08:48:33 +0000

Poland’s home kit is officially white shirts, red shorts and white socks, though they have worn all-red several times at home in the past, notably against England in qualifying matches as the two sides were regularly paired in the same group. I know whenever Wales played in Poland we’d either wear our home kit or switch to yellow or unlucky green.

I remember post-USSR (and CIS), Russia’s first kit was by Reebok and was all-white assymetrical affair with a blue sleeve and red seperating the white from the blue. This was quickly followed by an all-white kit featuring a very large Reebok logo in blue and red. Then that WC94 kit that Denis mentioned with the chequered pattern and strange collar. It wasn’t a popular kit as Russia readopted their previous kit for the Euro 96 qualifiers, before wearing a rather pedestrian design for the finals itself. However they did introduce a red and white away kit to mimic the old USSR kit.

They switched to Nike in late 1997 and had a number of kits over an 11 year period, before finally changing to Adidas and reducing white to a change kit.

By: Denis Hurley

Denis Hurley — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 01:08:36 +0000

Those WC 94 kits were awful with the tiny checkered pattern on the shoulders

By: Rich Johnson

Rich Johnson — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 20:07:11 +0000

After the break up of the USSR, the resultant interim team, the CIS played in a red home shirt and white away. When the team became Russia, they seem to have adopted white as the official home colour from the off. At USA 94, they wore white home shirts and BLUE away. After this, they seem to have settled into wearing white home / red away. Interestingly, when their red (Cardinal to be exact) post Euro 2008 shirt was leaked, it was touted as the home kit, which was proved false when the white home one came out. Seems the recent switch is the first time ‘Russia’ will have worn red as their 1st choice kit.
As for Poland, I think you’re right John. To my mind, they always wore red at home in the 80s, but for a while now their home kit has been white.

By: John Devlin

John Devlin — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 18:43:05 +0000

I always get a little confused by which strip is the home and which is the away for Russia and Poland. I’m sure they’ve switched several time.

By: Jon

Jon — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 16:27:20 +0000

Even though Russia did wear their red kit for the last few games of the Euro 2008 qualifying campaign the white kit was the designated home kit for the finals. However at the time I was rather intrigued as to why they wore red in the quarter final against Spain, and moreso when they played Wales in the World Cup 2010 qualifiers (I was wondering why the hell we turned up in Moscow in yellow!).

Anyhow the switch from white must have happened officially between Euro 2008 and the World Cup 2010 qualifiers, but even so, a change from red with white trim (à la USSR) to an almost burgundy colour with gold trim is still quite a strange one.

Come to think of it the Greeks are another team to go through a change, switching their home and away kits around after winning Euro 2004 whilst wearing their “lucky” white away kit. Now, blue is their away kit, whereas it used to be the home.

It’s not a completely radical change at international level, Thailand, for instance, wore red for many years, then changed to yellow to honour their king. Austria infamously dumped the German-like white and black for a more patriotic red and white, and Turkey have finally decided red with a white chestband (Middlesbrough style!) is their home kit, after years of confusing the hell out of me!

By: amir

amir — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 23:38:02 +0000

I always felt that Russia worn their last few red Nike kits, season 2006-07 onwards, as though they were their home one even though they were actually their away. So I think this was something asked for by the Russian FA. Also it seems inkeeping with current Russian politics.

By: Andrew Rockall

Andrew Rockall — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 14:11:45 +0000

Cheers Jon (no 12.), this is an ideal exapmple of having somewhere to share thoughts and knowledge about kit related things. From the short clip of the Bury game on TV I thought it was last season’s home shirt.

By: Rich Johnson

Rich Johnson — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 10:33:02 +0000

Adidas have produced 3 great kits for Russia since they returned as suppliers. The last Away one (the red) was also great looking and the ecru coloured trim an interesting addition.
As for the message board idea, I’m sure most peeps here would be happy to register

By: John Devlin

John Devlin — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 10:05:50 +0000

Those box sets do look nice Rich – makes me wonder though whether replica sales are slipping? This may be a way of giving people more value for their money.

Andrew – that is a great idea. I’m looking into it now – it will probably mean people have to register though to prevent the spam problem my publishers’ True Colours site had before. Watch this space…

Jon, its a pity Russia won’t qualify as I loved that kit…