underboyleheating

A few updates/alterations have been added to our change kits work in progress.

I’ve been in regular contact with a United match worn collector who has studied a few images of a white long sleeve shirt that belonged to Joe Wark. His widow kindly photographed them for us. He concluded that he doesn’t believe the shirt Joe had was anything to do with United. The shirt is identical in style to the United away, but with a few detail inconsistencies. We also wore short sleeves and Joe’s was a long sleeve.

He was good at ‘Corners’. I’ll get ma coat.

Another image link to the Fir Park game.

The home game. We are in the white shirts.

Yes logic and football doesn’t go hand in hand! At that time it was customary for the home side to change, However, we apparently didn’t have an away shirt. I’m imagining a conversation earlier in the week between us and them and us asking if they wouldn’t mind bringing both sets so we could keep up the away kit tradition. The other solution is that we called up our mysterious rep and asked him if we could borrow a set of kits. He just happens to have a set of United away style shirts that he loans us. After the game we wash them and hand them back. The reason I say we handed them back is that we played Thistle the next season and magically wore our old white Admiral kit and not the white Adidas we wore against United. it’s a very strange puzzle. Anyone got a time machine?

Sounds good. The shorts thing is intriguing as they may well have been claret. Ask him if he ever members having/wearing a white/black Adidas shirt. If so, does he know if that was in anyway official or did we borrow it for this game?

I suspect it was on here where somebody posted a link or scan to a news/magazine article about the kit rep who supplied us with our 1979-81 Adidas kit. The man was a bit of a kit entrepreneur and supplied not only us, but a few other teams as well. Note: It wasn’t a recent topic/reply and I reckon it was posted a good few years ago. I have vague recollections of it being in The Scots Magazine (or similar), but I could be wrong. I’ve tried the search function but so far I have drawn a blank. Does anyone have a copy of the article, or know who may have posted it? Any help would be much appreciated.

I have spoken to a friend of the late, great Joe Wark on Twitter and I’m hopeful he might shed some light.

My mistake, I’ve altered it

On the back of the Motherwell HFK change kit launch I would like to share with you one of Motherwell’s oddest away kit anomalies. If you can solve the puzzle, please let us know.

I’m not sure, however, our deal is arranged through PSL. I assume they all handle some other clubs as well as us. Big clubs like Manchester United, Barcelona deal directly with the supplier and encourage them to wear their gear as it’s good for their brand. Whilst we still have contact with Macron and no doubt receive great service there has always been a category tier system in football kit supply. We are sadly nowhere near the top kit deal tier.

We should have stuck with the status quo...

It should have been burned with fire.

The Adidas home was supplied by a self employed kit rep who in essence was an early team wear entrepreneur. It’s apparent that he had no real control over the colour and him and us had to accept what was available. He apparently supplied several smaller clubs around that time. There is a slim chance that he loaned us a set of kits for that game as the United away was just a generic Adidas design from the era. United where a much bigger concern than us around that time and I suspect they would have been supplied directly by Adidas.

I’ve been researching that kit for some time. The general opinion is that we borrowed it from Dundee United who wore an identical kit. I’ve found no other picture evidence that we ever wore it again so the assumption is that United took the kit back up the road with them. The only slight flaw in the argument is that the United kit had D.U.F.C on the left hand chest area and I can’t see any evidence of it being there on the available pics from the game. However, it may have been carefully taped over with white tape and due to the low quality of the images it may not be clear. If you locate a picture of it being worn in another game I would been keen to see it. Although the fact that we wore our old Admiral away against Thistle in 81 would suggest that we no longer had it.

Cheers, it’s a work in progress at the minute and any help identifying ‘lost’ away kits is much appreciated!

I’m proud to have been part of this project. I worked with the Motherwell historian, Stuart Graham and Matt Johnstone to catalogue all of our change kits. It’s still a work in progress but we are getting there!

Looks like it was another bad day at the office. Thank god we hopefully have enough of a cushion to stay out of the bottom two. Bring on next season and sack this one.

Sadly there is no copyright on colour in the same way that any team could adopt claret & amber as ‘their colour’. However, I agree it would make a nice Dundee shirt.

I’m on kit collector groups and there has been a positive reaction to it and that will likely generate sales from non Motherwell fans. Sometimes you need to see the wider picture.

Worth noting in the modern game far bigger clubs than us choose lots of weird and wonderful colours for their alternate kits. This woman’s shirt is pretty conservative in comparison to some shades used.

I’m a big fan of incorporating claret & amber into every kit where possible. However, it’s a charity shirt designed by the team and I don’t think we should look too deeply into the shades used. The blue tone we originally wore way back was a bog standard navy and a mid blue. The petrol blue shade we adopted is a modern interpretation based on nothing more than an image from cigarette card illustration. The colour dyes used at the time were pretty basic and bespoke colours weren’t that prevalent.

New kit for the ladies team. Designed by them as well for a great cause.

A point would be a great result. Killie are in trouble, although, results were kind to them and us today. No doubt Tommy will use that to spur them on in the push to stay in the league.