A Roy of the Rovers kit related question

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Melchester Rovers' kit in the early 80s was all red but with a single wide yellow stripe just down one side. Had any team anywhere worn any kit with that design then? Have any since? I'm assuming a cartoonist somewhere sat down with the remit of 'think of a kit that no-one thinks we've ripped off' and came up with that, musing that "sash" designs were all the rage with Peru and Palace. If so I think he or she deserves a place in the football hall of fame because that asymmetrical single stripe kit design is still one of the best I've ever seen. I've long hoped Liverpool would adopt it (even though Melchester Rovers were Manchester United).

[Cal Alamein]

Luton's Mid-70s kit was a bit daring. Couldn't find brother Ron, so Paul will have to do.

[Sean of the Shed]

According to this site the Melchester Rovers kit carried the vertical stripe from 1973 to 1981, which is the exact same time period that Luton Town's kit did.

[longeared]

Preston had a single vertical stripe in 1994-95 albeit with some silly sleeves, as displayed here by some youngster.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

I have no recollection of that kit! Nor indeed of Luton until David Pleat's dance across the pitch in 1982. Who else has copied the design since?

[ursus arctos]

Union Berlin, 1971-78



and the change for part of that period

[Ray de Galles]

It was the single stripe on the opposite side of the shorts that was the really distinctive part of the Melchester kit and, as the link SotS posts shows, it was quintessentially seventies rather than an eighties kit.

[Cal Alamein]

[ursus arctos]

Alemania Aachen 69-70

[Big Boobs and FIRE!]

Didn't the Man Utd change kit of the late 1970s have a black stripe down the side of a white shirt?

Failing that, in the fledgling period of my European football attendance (ie when at primary school I'd go to a week of Mitropa cup games with my dad) as part of my then extensive record keeping, I used to faithfully draw each teams kit in a scrap book. Ones with offset stripes I noted were Winterthur, NEC and St Pauli.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Ah yes, the asymmetrical GT stripe inherited from every other Ford Cortina of late 60s vintage. Hitchin Town had a mid-late 70s kit (yellow with a green stripe) of that style, but I can't find a picture of it.

[Sporting]

Didn't the Man Utd change kit of the late 1970s have a black stripe down the side of a white shirt?

http://www.historicalkits.co.uk/Manc...7-change-o.gif

[tee rex]

Torquay United, 1974:

http://team-shots.co.uk/images/Torquay1974_600x480.jpg

[The-Reverend]

Not stripe related, but weren't Melechester one of the first ever sides to have a Nike kit (after Sunderland)

[Nesta]

Cambridge Utd had a nike kit back in the 1980s at about the same time as melchester

[The-Reverend]

I only remember it in an advert around the same time as the books with NIKE plastered over the heel in yellow (which looked gorgeous) maybe in Shoot! or the ROTR Mag, cannot say I remember the Cambridge kit. But then again I only remember the Sunderland one due to my Derby County anti-hero Nick (F.A. Cup winner, and England international) Nick Pickering who along with Mick Harford became my Gods as everyone else liked Shilton, Saunders and Wright.

[ursus arctos]

1986-87

[The-Reverend]

That's actually quite nice, and I say that as someone that still believes that Spall or Matchwinner should dine at the top table in place of Nike.

[Janik]

Yuck. Wrong colour. Should be amber. Also it looks like the polyester could generate enough static electricity to power the Abbey floodlights.

Seeing as the first Melchester kit had numbers on the arms, I'm of the opinion that it was Cosmos/NASL inspired. Those numbers make the shirts look very North American.

[The-Reverend]

Kit I remember


And best picture I can find of the boots, I thought that Neil Webb might have done one but seems to just be Paul Walsh. Neil Webb!!



Obviously being a keeper back then we would never have worn Nike, just adidas, Puma or in a few years Hi-Tec

[ursus arctos]

The sleeve numbers were to accommodate US television (which had earlier asked gridiron for shoulder numbers) and didn't last long. The numbers where one would expect a manufacturer's badge, on the other hand, were very common in that era of the NASL

[Ray de Galles]

Seeing as the first Melchester kit had numbers on the arms, I'm of the opinion that it was Cosmos/NASL inspired. Those numbers make the shirts look very North American.

You mean the seventies kit, rather than the first one? I always took the sleeve numbers to be a gimmick inspired by Leeds' sock tags but the Cosmos tribute is an interesting theory.

[Janik]

Sorry, yes, I meant the first vertical sash (i.e. 'classic') kit.

[JVL]

Hayes changed the kit colours from red and white stripes to gold & black at some point in the 70s. This morphed to yellow and red pinstripes (the colours I first saw the team play in at Church Road) before returning to red and white halves in the mid-80s, and then back to the stripes after that. Anyway, the point is that one of the late 70s kits featured the asymmetrical single stripe. Can't find the full squad photo with that kit, but you can see it on this penpic photo:

[1974ddr]

Dynamo Dresden in the seventies...