In the red shirts, we have Truro City. And, in the, erm, reddy-orange shirts, we have Dorking FC. The National League South clash between the two teams, which was the curtain-raiser to the 2024/25 season, descended into farce within minutes after it became clear that nobody on the pitch or in the stands could tell the two teams apart.
An already farcical situation lurched into the realms of incredulity when it emerged that neither team had brought an alternative kit with them. And, so somebody, which would presumably be one of the match officials, ordered the Dorking players back down the tunnel, from which they emerged with their shirts turned inside out!
Have you ever seen a kit clash like this before? 🫣
The referee stopped Dorking Wanderers vs Truro City after four minutes because of this clash.
Dorking were forced to turn their shirts inside out 😭#BBCFootball pic.twitter.com/0DrJ984hbi
— Match of the Day (@BBCMOTD) August 10, 2024
Seeing Red and Seeing Double
You can’t help but feel sorry for Truro City, for whom the game was their first competitive action at their new Truro City Stadium – the first time in four years that they had truly played a ‘home’ game, having been forced to ground share in Plymouth, Torquay and even Gloucester, some 200 miles away, since their old ground was closed.
For their inaugural game to be halted after three minutes so that their opponents could turn their shirts inside out… well, it’s a funny old game. Truro City manager, John Askey, told local reporters:
I’ve never seen anything like it. I’ve been in football for a very, very long time. I’ve seen it where teams have turned up with a strip that clashes, but I’ve never seen a team run out.
When I first saw them coming I couldn’t recognise any of our players because I thought it was us.
Askey was left seeing double and he was no doubt seeing red when Dorking ran out 2-1 winners to poop Truro’s grand homecoming.
Football’s Most Infamous Kit Clashes
You would think that a kit clash in football is a pretty easy thing to avoid; after all, it’s not as if each team’s traditional colours are not known in advance. And yet, these clashes still seem to happen frequently – and even at the top-end of the beautiful game.
The Premier League has rules that should, in theory, prevent a kit clash from happening – they even have specialist software that shows how two kits will look side by side with a game at full speed. Where there’s a clash, the away team is usually the one tasked with playing in one of their change strips – although the memo doesn’t always seem to be received.
Premier League 2023: Tottenham & Newcastle
During the 2023/24 season, Tottenham travelled to play Newcastle at St James’s Park. The Magpies were in their famous black-and-white colours, which forced Spurs to change out of their traditional white kit. But, unfortunately, the change strip they took with them to the north east was a grey number (or ‘taupe haze’ to use Nike’s official colour palette), which caused a head-scratching clash that looked terrible both at pitch side and on TV.
Newcastle’s second kit, meanwhile, is green, which could have solved the bizarre kit clash with ease if they had just changed into that strip instead. Even the world’s oldest cup competition isn’t free of kit clashes.
Premier League 2024: Chelsea & Leicester City
When Chelsea took on Leicester City in the quarter-finals of the FA Cup in March 2024, they wore their standard dark blue shirt – but Leicester, for reasons unknown, decided to wear their black-with-blue-stripe number, as opposed to their gold change kit.
Communication Breakdown
These days, the required people at a football club can easily be contacted with a phone call, email or WhatsApp message. But back in the 1970s, such channels of communication weren’t freely available – a good old-fashioned letter was the main means of messaging, particularly internationally.
World Cup 1978: France & Hungary
When FIFA wrote to France and Hungary ahead of their game at World Cup ’78 to tell them what kits to wear to avoid a clash (this was in the days of black-and-white TV, remember), France did not receive their letter. So, they turned up to the game in Buenos Aires in a kit all too similar to that of the Hungarians, which was rather embarrassing for a World Cup contest.
To avoid a clash, officials were scrambled to local clubs to source an alternative – returning with a green-and-white strip from Kimberley Atletico Club. The colours of the Argentine minnows gained notoriety by being worn by Michel Platini and co on the World Cup stage. It must have brought them some luck, too, with the French running out 3-1 winners.
Premier League 1996: Coventry City & Chelsea
Can you remember when Coventry City took on Coventry City in the Premier League during the 1996/97 season? No, of course they didn’t. But a kit clash between the respective blue shirts of Coventry and their opponents Chelsea required some quick thinking to solve – in the end Chelsea, nicknamed the Blues, took to the pitch at Highfield Road wearing Coventry’s change strip, a natty red-and-black checkered number.
Premier League 2015: Crystal Palace & Burnley
A similar scenario unfolded in the Premier League clash between Crystal Palace and Burnley, and would have occurred at an Italian Serie A clash between Inter Milan and AC Milan – but for local pride. Although they wear kits with blue and red stripes respectively, their design has become increasingly darker over the years – when playing under floodlights, it was almost impossible to tell them apart back in 2015/16.
Premier League 1996: Manchester United & Southampton
However, neither side wanted to back down and change out of their primary colours, so the game went ahead with one of the most ‘challenging’ kit clashes to watch. Although not a colour clash, one of the Premier League’s most infamous kit-inspired moments saw Sir Alex Ferguson lose his head as his Manchester United side took on Southampton.
United, who couldn’t wear their traditional red shirt due to a clash with the Saints’ classic colours, instead wore a grey alternative – but Ferguson claimed the tone was so nondescript that his players simply couldn’t see each other – an explanation for them being 0-3 down at half time. He got his players to change into a blue-and-white kit at half time and they went on to lose 1-3.
