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Throughout their
history, St.Mirren’s colours have been predominantly black and white,
more often than not, in the form of vertically striped shirts. There are
several theories as to why these colours were chosen, all with some
relevance to the club and Paisley.
1) The Cluniac Monks who founded
Paisley Abbey and who played a major role in the development of the town
wore black and white robes.
2) Paisley used to play host to an
annual charity match between Sweeps and Bakers. (Black soot and White
flour!)
3) The River Cart which splits into
the White Cart and Black Cart travels through Paisley and its
surroundings.
The colours have changed little since the beginnings in 1877, but the
design has gone through many different guises.
In the 1880’s the stripes were horizontal for at least one season.
All white strips or white tops and black shorts have appeared at several
points in history, most notably in 1919 when they won the Victory Cup
and again in 1943 when the Summer Cup was won.
Other seasons where white has been worn include 1935-36, 1959-60 and
1962-63.
A novel touch
for ’62-63 was the white top, but with the retention of the
stripes…..on the shorts!
White has also been a feature of ‘away’ or 2nd strips with many
seasons seeing all white kits.
However the generally accepted colour for Saints 2nd choice strip is red
and the majority of 2nd kits have contained a large amount of red in
some form.
However, there are several references to Saints wearing blue strips for
matches, although no reference to whether they were 1st, 2nd or
‘borrowed’ strips.
The blue strip was first recorded in 1926 for a match against Celtic.
More recently a blue strip has been worn on ‘one-off’ occasions
because of colour clashes. In 1985 during the away leg of the UEFA Cup
tie against Slavia Prague, Saints had to wear blue as Slavias’ red and
white strip clashed with both Saints home and away choices.
Again in the early 1990’s a blue strip was worn for a match at East
End Park against Dunfermline.
During the 1980’s and 90’s there were several strips that broke with
tradition.
Between 1984 and 1987 the top was white with thin black pinstripes and a
silvery shadow stripe, but this strip was very popular with the public,
possibly because it was the strip worn for the 1987 Scottish Cup win.
In 1994-95 instead of stripes, the home strip was made of black and
white halves, which was not too popular with the fans and normal stripes
were resumed the following season.
The pin stripe effect was reproduced in 1996-97 with the home top being
white with black and grey pinstripe and the away top being black and
having white and grey pinstripe, both popular choices.
The away strips during this period also showed some major changes!
1989-91 saw two change strips, red tops and black shorts and white tops
with black shorts.
1993-94 saw a very contemporary design with red, black, white and grey
being merged into random looking stripes.
1994-95 once again saw two change strips with the 2nd choice being a
yellow top with black sleeves and shorts and the third choice being a
red and black striped shirt with black shorts.
Blue was to make a re-appearance in 1997-98 and again for season
2002-03, but it is the strip for 1998-99 that caused the most shock to
fans when it was revealed to be bright orange! A complete break away
from tradition!
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