Clash Of Colours

[the Deel Rover]

They had a Co Roscommon resident named O'Mahony helping out last year .
They certainly only seek the assistance of good ones.
I dont suppose ye fellas would ask a certain Co Mayo resident and Inter Co manager to rui...... help ye out.

Don't think ye can put all the blame on Jm, can't seem to remeMber ye having too much success with a Mr Tommy Carr then again i think the players were too interested in playing pool

[Rossfan]

[
Don't think ye can put all the blame on Jm,

True but he's certainly not helpin'.

[spectator]

Don't think ye can put all the blame on Jm, can't seem to remeMber ye having too much success with a Mr Tommy Carr then again i think the players were too interested in playing pool

At least we won a few championship matches under TC & competed in the higher echelons of the league. But to be fair to JM, at least he has now realised the error of his ways during his first 2 years in charge & is going to pick something approaching the best players in the county for the coming season.

How do ye think the game will pan out on Sunday? Will Ballina target Brigid's full-back line from the off, or will they try and turn it into a dogfight in which they scrape a narrow win? The midfield battle will be fairly crucial to the outcome.

[thewingedlady]

Mind playing in an u-16 county semi final against granemeore in 2004 where they wore predominantly green away jerseys and we wore our normal white with blue trim so there was no clash there. However, Granemore being granemore, gave out about this and the game was delayed because we had to change into cuchullian jerseys.

common sense et al...

[CompulsoryTillager]

I have written the following article for today's Evening Echo newspaper in Cork (page 46, for anybody buying it):

READERS of a certain age will be familiar with the computer game Sensible Soccer, which was very popular when released in 1992. Though somewhat simple-looking when placed against the likes of FIFA or Pro Evolution Soccer today, it was a great game for its time. One of its groundbreaking features was a comprehensive editor, where any aspect of a team, including its kit, could be changed. When a game took place between sides that had similar colours, the computer would put one, or both, wearing its change strip to avoid confusion. If a computer game can do this, then why does the biggest sporting organisation in the country have problems spotting it? 

Colour clashing in the GAA is a massive problem that seems to go unnoticed by those in power. Take this year's All-Ireland U21 football semi-final between Cork and Armagh. Cork, of course, wear red jerseys with white shorts, while Armagh have a shade of orange that is very close to red. You'd think that somebody, either involved with the counties or in the GAA, would have realised the need for one county to wear white, but no, the regular colours were worn.
It seems to be that a club or county's colour scheme is held very dear to their hearts. They will try to avoid changing as much as possible, and that it would be seen as a sign of weakness to change, even for just one game.
However, this overlooks one, in my view rather important, point: colours exist solely to tell teams apart. When two teams are nigh on indistinguishable, it is confusing for everybody, including the teams, the officials and the spectators.

In the 1996 All-Ireland football final, both Meath and Mayo wore their regular jerseys, and Sean Boylan is reported as saying afterwards that his players were suffering from colour-blindness due to the similarity, and Meath wore gold for the replay. 
There is also a marketing aspect overlooked, in that more people would buy the change jerseys if they were ever actually worn.
Cork had launched new regular and alternative jerseys just prior to that aforementioned Armagh game, and it would have been a good opportunity to showcase it, but it seems the lessons of the previous white jersey were not learnt, as that never saw the light of day on the pitch.

In American sports there is never any such confusion; 'home' and 'away' jerseys are literally that, one worn in front of your own fans, the other on the road, with one team always playing in dark jerseys and the other in light-coloured ones.
A similar system prevails at the World Cup and European Championships in soccer.

Aussie Rules is somewhat similar to GAA in that clubs are very reluctant to take the field in anything other than their traditional colours unless it is totally unavoidable. Chief culprits here are two of the biggest clubs, Collingwood and Essendon. The former play in black and white stripes, a la Newcastle, and when at the start of this year the AFL requested that all clubs develop a 'clash jumper', theirs was, wait for it, white and black stripes, a simple reversal of the home colours, which, did little or nothing to alleviate a colour clash.
Essendon play in black jerseys with a red sash, and have done so since their formation in 1873, and hold the Guinness World Record for most consecutive games played by a sports franchise in the same colours. Their fans were up in arms by the alternate jersey issue, but their fears were placated somewhat when the away was revealed: black with a slightly wider red sash.
Of course, even when a colour clash is averted, not all parties are happy. Up until the mid-1980s, the rule in Cork regarding clashing was that the younger club, ie the one founded most recently, should change their colours.
This rule was then modified and it was decreed that both clubs should wear alternative kit in the event of a clash. However, St Finbarr's, scheduled to play Brian Dillon's in a city division game, forgot about the rule change and turned up only with their blue jerseys, while Dillon's had their white outfit. So repulsed by this were Dillon's that they refused to play unless the Barrs were wearing their yellow jerseys, and they were fined as a result, despite technically being in the right.

Taking matters into your own hands can also be dangerous, though. In 2001, Sligo were drawn to play Kildare in the All-Ireland football qualifiers. As both counties wore white, there had to be a coin toss to decide who changed.
Sligo lost this and had to turn out in an all-black kit. They beat the fancied Kildare and decided to stick with the black for the next game against Dublin, as they considered it a lucky charm. However, the GAA didn't take such a kind view to superstition and fined them £250, for wearing colours other than those listed in the GAA official diary. The following year, Sligo submitted black as their primary colour and have worn it since.

Before this year's Cork County SeniorHurling semi-final between Newtownshandrum and Bride Rovers, the county board apparently decided that there was no need for a change of colours and that Newtown could wear their green jerseys with gold hoop and Bride would play in their normal tricolour. Common sense prevailed on Newtown's part though and they took to the field in blue jerseys, which didn't seem to do them any harm as they won. Another example of sense being shown was Ballingcollig wearing their red, black and white change jerseys in their Cork County SFC replay with Clonakilty, after both clubs had worn their normal shirts in the first game. 

Change colours can come to be regarded as a lucky charm, too. Arsenal fans hold yellow and blue kits in high regard as some of the club's most famous victories have come while wearing it, and surely no Offaly person could dislike their white jerseys with the green and gold bands around the shoulder, as worn by Seamus Darby in 1982 when he buried the hopes of Kerry's five-in-a-row. By the same token, nobody would say Cork's 1973 football All-Ireland win was devalued because it was achieved wearing white jerseys. But perhaps what is most frustrating is the sheer inconsistency of it all.

For some people, the strips of Tipperary and Clare can be hard to differentiate, but rarely have they changed, apart from the 1993 Munster hurling final and 1998 football semi-final, but when Donegal and Leitrim met in the qualifiers this year, both counties wore their provincial colours, despite this colour clash being on a par with Clare and Tipp. One would think that when Meath and Offaly meet, a change of colours would be essential, given that both have a lot of green in their jerseys, as well as both having white shorts, but it is only in recent years that change kits have been worn regularly in this fixture, with both teams wearing their usual colours when they seemed to meet on an annual basis in the late 90s.   

When Kerry and Mayo met in the 2004 All-Ireland senior football final, Mayo wore red jerseys, but for 2005 quarter-final, when both teams had the same kits as the previous year, neither changed, though a few weeks later for the minor semi-final, Mayo wore white. In last year's senior final, the regular colours were worn.

If, in the case of a final, a team want to be seen collecting the cup in their normal colours, then they could follow the example set by Newtownshadrum when they won the 2004 hurling club All-Ireland.
Forced to wear the red of Cork due to a clash with Antrim side Dunloy, they then donned their usual green and gold for the presentation, similar to what Barcelona and Real Madrid did in the 1992 and 2000 European Cup finals respectively.

In Jack Mahon's excellent book, A History of Gaelic Football, it is mentioned in one of the early chapters that no less a figure than Michael Cusack himself had suggested clubs have two jerseys, one dark and one white, so that "when a match is made," as he put it, any colour problems could be avoided. It would seem that almost 125 years later, that message still has not entrenched itself properly.

[Gnevin]

Good read about time sense prevailed

[Leo]

Having started this thread its good to see a comprehensive analysis that should be compulsory reading for all GAA authorities.

[CompulsoryTillager]

I wrote to the GAA about this six or seven years ago Leo (back when I was a 16 year old who thought I could change the world  ), and they just said that it rests with the board/committee in charge of each competition, basically they couldn't see any problems

[Louth Exile]

Good article alright.

We always wore the same colours as offaly, we got a new jersey for last years senior final which was a predominantly white jersey (as can be seen in my avatar) Didn't do us any harm 

[Drumanee 1]

bellaghy played st galls 2 years ago in the ulster and both teams had to wear the county colours,with bellaghy playing in derry jerseys,that would have been alright but we chose to wear our blue shorts and we looked awful,the strip was pretty bad too

[CompulsoryTillager]

When Donegal played Leitrim this year, both had to wear provincial colours, but Donegal wore their green shorts and socks, that looked fairly bad too

[ziggysego]

Greencastle played Ardoyne in the first round of the Ulster Junior Club Championship last year. The two teams played in their county strips, rather than their club strips for this games. Don't know if this was because of a colour clash, or someother reason. Prehaps any Belfastians can let me know what the Ardoyne strip is like.

[Aaron Boone]

Dublin and Laois is really hard to tell as well, esp as it has become an annual fixture in Croker. Maybe the jersey manufacturers should get together a little bit (O'Neills, Azzurri, Gaelic Gear).

[Gnevin]

Dublin and Laois is really hard to tell as well, esp as it has become an annual fixture in Croker. Maybe the jersey manufacturers should get together a little bit (O'Neills, Azzurri, Gaelic Gear).

It's easy the Dub's are the one strolling around the pitch 9 nine points ahead
and pointing to the occasional score board

[ziggysego]

Balax. If you can't tell the difference, you are blind. They're not even the same style of jersey.
What happens when Greencastle play Clonoe?

That'll be the day

Don't rule us out Tram. Who would have thought Greencastle would be the first adult club in Tyrone on win an All Ireland