Stripes and hoops on sports jerseys

[tommytimp]

Hoops in extremis:

[rmered]

I'll take a slightly different tack, based on the age of the teams involved.

In soccer, many teams are, or are influenced by, teams who have been around since the late 1800s.

In that era, you could get solid colours, and stripes in vertical or horizontal (now called hoops).

That was it.

Then the soccer teams decided that eventually they would have to wear Home and Away strips, because no matter how different your strips were, eventually you would play someone who was too close to be worn in the same game.

So when American sports began to come to prominence, the Home & Away uniform rule was not far away from being accepted. So even teams like the Bears who did have stripes, changed back to solid as there was no way they were going to clash with their opponents, given one was in Home, the other Road.

[Gothamite]

Interesting theory, but I don't know how well your timeline works.

Can't speak for the Bears, but the Packers abandoned their striped jerseys a decade before they wore their first "away" jersey.

[roxfan00]

[Pandaguy87]

According to Wikipedia, most soccer teams with hoops got them from rugby shirts which usually had horizontal stripes, and rugby started becoming popular about the same time as soccer.

As for Americans not doing the clash kit thing it probably stems from the fact that early baseball teams were identified by the colors of their socks, hence names like the Red Sox and White Sox (and the St. Louis Reds). Since most athletes don't look at each others legs while playing it only made sense to wear different jerseys and pants. White was the popular home color and gray was the popular away color. No one is sure why, but the practical explanation is that gray clothes don't have to be washed as often so a team on the road wouldn't have to spend time cleaning their uniforms.

Not to mention it's kinda practical for sports. Telling red from blue is easy, but it's much easier to tell red from white. And on a similar note do they really do the clash kit thing in Italy? I was watching a game the other day and AC Milan was wearing their white away jersey against a team that was wearing blue. Or something. Well it wasn't red or black, that's for sure. Not to mention Palermo has a shirt that's mostly pink and despite the fact that their the only top level soccer team in Europe to wear pink I saw a game where they were wearing their away jersey. Heck under those circumstances an away jersey is completely useless!

[harperdc]

it's also about how much of a clash there is. If Palermo's wearing their pinks against a team mostly in yellow, the light-light clash is just as valid as two teams being in red. Same with why Milan were wearing white - their jerseys are pretty dark, and against another team with a dark uni they need to switch it up.

I like the way European soccer works, it means that - when there isn't a clash of colors (like Barca and Real Madrid) on the two home shirts - one team isn't forced into an away for no other reason. I guess this makes soccer shirts more "primary" and "alternate" than "home" and "away."

[totc]

I like the way European soccer works, it means that - when there isn't a clash of colors (like Barca and Real Madrid) on the two home shirts - one team isn't forced into an away for no other reason. I guess this makes soccer shirts more "primary" and "alternate" than "home" and "away."

True.

But when AC Milan, Juventus, or Inter Milan play each other, they keep their striped tops, but you'll notice that one team or the other wears white socks and shorts and the other team doesn't.

[Gothamite]

And on a similar note do they really do the clash kit thing in Italy? I was watching a game the other day and AC Milan was wearing their white away jersey against a team that was wearing blue. Or something. Well it wasn't red or black, that's for sure. Not to mention Palermo has a shirt that's mostly pink and despite the fact that their the only top level soccer team in Europe to wear pink I saw a game where they were wearing their away jersey. Heck under those circumstances an away jersey is completely useless!

Not quite the same thing, but Juventus wears pink as their clash strip.

Also, keep in mind that there are times when teams might wear their change kits for reasons other than a clash - some clubs have special kits they wear for European competition, and sometimes they just like to show the fans something different or new, just as some NFL clubs will wear white at home from time to time.

That's why "away jersey" is slightly misleading.

[Gregmond]

Stripes and hoops are common in Australian rules football uniforms (Geelong, Collingwood, Kangaroos, Hawthorn) to name a few. Of those teams, most (if not all) have a solid patch of colour for the contrasting numbers, and Hawthorn have taken it to the extreme with a square white patch on their backs with black numbers (on a brown and gold uniform).

We also have two teams with coloured sashes (Essendon and Richmond), and Richmond have often had problems with their numbers being easily read. Originally they used white numbers over the top of the yellow sash, then they ditched the sash from the back of the uni and moved to yellow numbers, now they've re-added the sash on their backs, and put a thick black outline around white numbers.

I suspect we had stripes and hoops and sashes because they're common in the UK where our (white) society came from.

Greg

[rmered]

Stripes and hoops are common in Australian rules football uniforms (Geelong, Collingwood, Kangaroos, Hawthorn) to name a few. Of those teams, most (if not all) have a solid patch of colour for the contrasting numbers, and Hawthorn have taken it to the extreme with a square white patch on their backs with black numbers (on a brown and gold uniform).

We also have two teams with coloured sashes (Essendon and Richmond), and Richmond have often had problems with their numbers being easily read. Originally they used white numbers over the top of the yellow sash, then they ditched the sash from the back of the uni and moved to yellow numbers, now they've re-added the sash on their backs, and put a thick black outline around white numbers.

I suspect we had stripes and hoops and sashes because they're common in the UK where our (white) society came from.

Greg

I just happen to have done some research on the Aussie uniform designs.

Some clubs started in the 1860s and 1870s.

Thos clubs used Navy Guernsey jumpers, and the socks and caps were the point of differentiation, as there were no manufacturers of jerseys in Australia.

1875 was the first appearance of canvas lace-up jerseys.

(Melbourne and Carlton both ordered Navy Blue from England)

By 1877 the next shipment from England arrived, and this time there was alll Blue, Blue and White stripes and Blue and White hoops.

It was because of manufacturing capabilities that only these colours were available.

By the next shipment there were other colours available, and while some clubs changed, North, Geelong, Carlton and to some extent Melbourne & Footscray still wear the available colours of the late 1870s.

Essendon and Richmond both adopted sashes on their Navy jumpers, Essendon adopting Black in about 1890, Richmond in their second season, 1886, went from the Blue work jumpers with a Black & Yellow sash, to Black and Yellow stripes as soon as the jumpers could get made up.

By this stage companies had been set up to produce them in Australia.

[olyajessica]

There are different kind of uniforms of all types of sports according to country. Generally strips and hoods are not looking good at sports T-shirts, most of sports T-shirts are available in dark plain colors with numbers like red color with black numbers and blue color with black numbers.

[Mings]

I'm relatively sure the post before me is spam, but I must say I applaud the OP's penchant for 80s porn. Traci Lords was an excellent role model.

[twi]

Hoops are fairly prevalent in the NASL, with at least Tampa Bay, Ft Lauderdale, and Atlanta using them. Tampa isn't full bodied though as they used to be.

[Jaffa]

Even though there are traditions involving solid-body uniforms, it seems to me as though some pro sports organizations have them written into the rules because of the difficulty of officials reading numbers. It has been discussed at length that some soccer uniforms are being altered because the checkers, hoops, or stripes make it difficult to read numbers (that was the reason behind Nike's 8 -Ball jersey of a few years back; you couldn't make out Croatia's numbers). Field hockey went to the solid body in 1995 (although the United States wore a flying-star pattern in Athens).

Indeed, and I think it's a shame to see striped or hooped shirts with blank backs. Granted, in some cases the numbers are hard to distinguish without a patch, but it seems silly forcing it on teams where a third colour used for the number stands out perfectly fine - yellow for Barcelona for example, or white for the two Milan clubs.

my other reason as to why striped and hoops are more prevalent in europe is that they are derived from the cities colours. heraldic influences engrain more than just colours upon a town or city but indeed patterns, stripes and hoop. blackburn for example. there are many places in teh uk where all sporting clubs from a certain town have no choice inteh colours they wear. newcastle (black and white for football and rugby), leeds (blue and yellow for both football rugby union and league) and more. admittedly large cities with multiple clubs cannot all play inteh same colours but each suburb often has a unique colour associated with it (rangers and celtic, blue and green scots and irish, protestant and catholic).

Similarly, a number of clubs were formed out of teams already playing other sports - cricket clubs, for example. Often they'd be looking for a sport to play during winter months to keep their players fit and together, and football suited their needs. In this instance, the club colours were already established and stripes, hoops or quarters gave teams an opportunity to combine multiple colours on a shirt.

It should also be noted that in the very early days of organised league football in England, there were no change strips - when a team was accepted into the league it had to register a unique design that wasn't already in use by another club. As a result, a number of teams had to change from their traditional look and patterns such as stripes, hoops and chevrons gave teams an opportunity to adapt their identity to comply with the rules. Over time, these new looks stuck with a number of teams and became part of their tradition.

[KingSpikeSuperTwist]

...are very common in European football (soccer to some of you guys), with teams like Barcelona, Celtic, Juventus, Newcastle Utd, Atletico Madrid etc sporting one of either.

Why is it not usual for American sports teams to have jerseys of that style?

this is why http://www.google.com/imgres?sa=X&biw=1920&bih=955&tbm=isch&tbnid=hEX2FqnV7EY2wM:&imgrefurl=http://www.vipnhljerseys.com/cammalleri-stripe-jersey-montreal-canadiens-13-cac-stripe-p-511.html&docid=RedkxX6w5nS45M&imgurl=http://www.vipnhljerseys.com/images/large/nhljerseysusa/ersey-Montreal-Canadiens-13-CAC-stripe-511_LRG.jpg&w=750&h=499&ei=8VHOUdvIJIezyQHps4DgCQ&zoom=1&ved=1t:3588,r:0,s:0,i:81&iact=rc&page=1&tbnh=173&tbnw=266&start=0&ndsp=49&tx=154&ty=86

[El Scorcho]

Australian football has a heap of hoops, stripes, sashes and the like, but there is almost always a solid colour underneath the numbers, and the numbers are only on the back at the elite level.

[Discrim]

Dunno how I missed this thread back in 07...anyway, a number of years ago, I was flipping through channels, and happened to come across a Chicago high school basketball game. Julian HS was the home team, can't remember who the hell the visitors were, but Julian wore one of the strangest basketball unis I've ever seen: orange and white hoops, white back, black lettering, IIRC white shorts. Those unis would be illegal today, but they were more memorable than whatever the hell my alma mater's currently wearing.