Here’s a poser for you

I know all football kit fans like a challenge! This photo has got me stumped and I’d be really interested to hear what people think is going on here.

As you may know I am currently researching 1970s kits and on investigating Charlton Athletic I came across this pic of them playing away at Cardiff City in the 1970-71 season (click to enlarge).

Charlton have a tradition of blue and black striped away shirts, so it is a fair assumption they are wearing them in this match. But…Cardiff play in blue! So, would blue and black stripes ‘clash’ with blue? And why would Charlton change from their regular red?

Any ideas as to what the circumstances of this match are? Could it be a green and black Charlton shirt? Or a strange red and black ensemble? Or did Cardiff test run a batch of red shirts 40 years prior to their recent colour switch?

Answers on a postcard please or failing that just type them below…

23 Replies to “Here’s a poser for you

  1. They may have changed due to a short clash. This means that might have has a third strip of black and another colour’s stripes. Probably green or red.

  2. They may have changed due to a shorts clash. This means that they might have had a third strip of black and another colour’s stripes. Probably green or red.

  3. Cardiff played in a change of all white at Portsmouth in ’69/70 and all red at QPR in 1970, so I would say it is unlikely

  4. I think the likeliest scenario is the Black stripes and shorts in the Athletic away kit would have ‘darkened’ the overall appearance of the kit sufficiently to not clash with the Cardiff home kit.

  5. I believe that Dave Shipperley also played for Plymouth in the early ’70’s who (I think) played in green and black stripes back then. Of course, this doesn’t explain why this photo was in a Charlton programme. It’s possible that the publisher of the programme used any old picture of Shipperley they could get their hands on.

  6. Interesting thought Ronan – but Plymouth weren’t playing in stripes that season I don’t think. Plus it was in a Charlton programme (unusually featuring away matches) so I would have thought the editor would have got it right.

  7. In reply to No. 6, it was Southend who were wearing dark blue shirts & wore them for the whole 1968-9 season but were instructed by the Football League to stop wearing them in September 1969 because of clashes with the Referee’s kit. Southend then changed to a West brom strip.

  8. Could they have had a change shirt for televised games.. to help black n white tv viewers tell who was who easier than a plain red shirt would clash with cardiff’s blue .

  9. In this months WSC theres a colour photo of a match between Hull and Charlton featuring the black/red stripes ..doesnt say what season but its on a pitch covered in snow if anyone can remember such a fixture ?

  10. So it was red and black stripes!!? Good find Tony. Odd choice for an away kit – I suspect it was an alternative ‘home’ – didn’t Chelsea also wear blue and black stripes at least once rather than their home kit? Likely Charlton were copying the strong Man City side who had a red/black striped away kit just prior to this time.

  11. Great to see the Charlton ‘keeper not wearing gloves even in proper ‘Yorkshire cold’ (unlike the namby-pamby southern cold we have here in London)….makes you want to weep when you see the pampered boys of today getting the gloves out as soon as the clocks change.

Leave a Reply to Mark Jessop Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *