Redding Soccer Club

When soccer became an organised sport in the mid 1800s, the formation of the English Football Association brought many rules to the previously anarchic sport. However, uniforms or kits were not one of the early rules as players generally wore whatever they liked with a coloured cap or scarf used to distinguish themselves from other players. Soccer in England was played mainly by wealthy gentlemen who were financially able to purchase a suitable shirt in their club’s colours – with plain white t-shirts the most popular kit due to its ease to obtain and being relatively cheap.

In a handbook published in 1867, it was advised that ‘if it can be previously so arranged, to have one side with striped jerseys of one colour, say red, and the other with another, say blue. This prevents confusion and wild attempts to wrest the ball from your neighbour.’ However, from the inception of the Football Association in 1863, it still took over a decade for soccer kits to appear and become a regular part of the game.

The first kits that appeared were generally taken from public schools, with teams such as Blackburn Rovers adopting the colours initially of Cambridge University as many of their players were former students. Many of the original kits were garish and brash, shown by Reading’s use of a salmon pink, claret and blue uniform – a million miles from the simple royal blue and white of today.

As the sport moved away from a middle class hobby and became popular as a working class occupation, the kits were to evolve with the sport itself. Individuals would no longer be responsible for providing their own uniform, as clubs began to adopt specific colours and provide the kit for their team to wear.