Friday 30 October 2009

Blue Isn't The Colour

England unveil new away kit - Telegraph

Ooh, [rant mode=ON]

What are England doing in blue? It may be an unwritten rule - indeed, it may well exist only in my head - but there are some colours that certain countries should never sport. "National" colours must come from flags, or other readily-identifiable national symbols. England and Wales cannot be blue. White, red and green are okay, although green is pushing it for England. Wales can justify black and gold (from St. David's cross). Scotland or Ireland would look bloody silly playing in red, wouldn't they? Orange was daft enough...


Bah. Double-bah if you're Scottish, I imagine - as England's sense of "ownership" of blue undoubtedly stems, consciously or not, from the Union Flag. Bah!

[rant mode=OFF]
[partisan mode=ON]

Anyway, off to Liberty in a while to watch the Ospreys' Reserves' Wives' Friends' Under-21 XV take on Glasgow. The omens are hardly good. Young players must be developed, of course, and this is the kind of fixture to do it; but it's no use pretending that this is the XXII we'd select by choice. That said, our choices haven't exactly covered themselves in glory thus far...




3 comments:

Unknown said...

Scotland have never played in orange. No matter what colour-blind commentators might tell you, those strips were pink.

Rob Stradling said...

David, I was referring to the shirts worn by Scotland during 1999/2000; orange with blue trim. Hideous. So bad that they have been all but erased from history - or Google, at least - although this BBC page confirms that I didn't imagine them, unfortunately.

Rob Stradling said...

Found a pic of the 1999 shirt, and added it in above.

Anyway, what I definitely got wrong was that those England shirts were in fact purple. I still think they look navy blue in that photo, and the point still stands; in fact, more so! Humbug!