AFL's rubbery white shorts policy

[Adelaide Hawk]

The AFL are an amazing bunch, they run a multi billion dollar corporation and the only skill they have is making money. They appear to have absolutely no freaking idea how to run a competition and the issue with clashing jumpers and shorts is a prime example.

How hard can this issue be? Get each club to register three jumpers, a preferred or home jumper and two completely different away jumpers. One of these away jumpers would be predominantly light, and the other predominantly dark. Shorts would match the jumpers in terms of colour and tone.

Then, each week someone with a spare 5 minutes on their hands takes a look at the 2 teams and puts the following process in place:
1. Home team wears their preferred uniform as previously nominated by the club.
2. Depending on the home team's jumper, the AFL nominate one of the 2 away jumpers that least clashes with the home jumper.
3. A communiqué is sent to all 16 clubs telling them which jumpers they will be wearing.
4. A further communiqué is sent to the umpires telling them which colour strip they will be wearing.
5. Any club, or umpires, not conforming to AFL's directive will be fined $50,000, $100,000 for a second offence.

It can be as simple as that, but for some reason the AFL can't deal with it. You don't see this crap in any other sport. Aussie Rules likes to think it's a professional organization but in reality it's just an amateur sport with a TV deal.

I don't watch a lot of games not involving Hawthorn because, quite frankly, the contemporary game annoys the crap out of me, and I'm not just talking about the way the game is played. However, what I can't understand about my club is our away strip is darker than our home one, and on many occasions creates a clash which wouldn't have happened had we just worn our normal jumper. This just staggers me. Common sense appears to be a luxury that is in very short supply amongst football administrators.

 

[Adelaide Hawk]

Never seemed to be an issue for the past 120-odd years...

For the first 120 years, players stuck to their positions. Now all 36 players are involved in the play.

 

[Clive Diablo]

If Fremantle still had their original jumper there would be no clash, but they changed their jumper and made a clash with Carlton.

I also saw West coasts first game on Fox last week again no clash with Richmond.

I remember a Freo v Carlton game would have been 1996 at Subi. I think it was Earl who gathered the ball in a pack, quickly glanced, saw the dark jumper with a splash of white and fired a handball 20m to Tony Delaney standing 20m on his own. Clearly mistaken identity with the similar jumpers. I rember clearly as even back then the jumpers were difficult to distinguish.

The Bulldogs, Freo and Port do the away/clash jumpers best. And Collingwood too if they would wear the bl**dy white with black stripes one.

 

[edgie]

What a joke. How anyone can claim the AFL still isn't full of a VFL first mentality is a mystery.

 

[Ice-Wolf]

What a joke. How anyone can claim the AFL still isn't full of a VFL first mentality is a mystery.

It's not a VFL first mentality it's a VFL Big 4 first mentality.

 

[coldlunch]

That's not a bad idea. No doubt a crowd full of white could look pretty good. And would sell a bunch of white jumpers.

nice idea in theory, but how many people actually own anything white they can wear outdoors, at night, in winter?
clearly aimed at selling off some of the white merch, but i'm not sure they would sell much.

money making aside, the smart thing would be to hand out white ponchos outside the gate. whack the Programmed logo on and it would cost the club nothing.

 

[Collins-Langford-Ayres]

What a joke. How anyone can claim the AFL still isn't full of a VFL first mentality is a mystery.

Not seen the ongoing list of Sydney handouts then????

 

[Ice-Wolf]

Not seen the ongoing list of Sydney handouts then????

Sydney are a VFL team, as are West Coast and Brisbane for that matter, Sydney is even a foundation club of the league. The only purely AFL era teams are Adelaide, Port Adelaide, Fremantle, Gold Coast and Greater Western Sydney.

 

[Lets Roar like '44]

Did I hear Ed last night sound surprised that the home team were wearing white? The same man that refused his team to wear white when playing North as the away team forcing the home team to be in white?

 

[edgie]

It's not a VFL first mentality it's a VFL Big 4 first mentality.

Yep true

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[SuperSub17]

Did I hear Ed last night sound surprised that the home team were wearing white? The same man that refused his team to wear white when playing North as the away team forcing the home team to be in white?

There's no feasible way for that to work though.

Can you imagine North with a predominantly white jumper and blue shorts, while Collingwood has a dark jumper with white shorts?

Geelong has the same issue. The round 15 game in 2007 where they wore blue shorts and Collingwood wore white was atrocious. So since then they've always worn white against us.

The real issue is WCE having to wear a clash jumper

 

[parano1a]

3. A communiqué is sent to all 16 clubs telling them which jumpers they will be wearing.

How do the other 2 clubs know what to wear?

 

[estibador]

How do the other 2 clubs know what to wear?

The AFL owns them so they set their clothes out on the bed the night before.

 

[MC Extra Dollop]

The AFL are an amazing bunch, they run a multi billion dollar corporation and the only skill they have is making money. They appear to have absolutely no freaking idea how to run a competition and the issue with clashing jumpers and shorts is a prime example.

How hard can this issue be? Get each club to register three jumpers, a preferred or home jumper and two completely different away jumpers. One of these away jumpers would be predominantly light, and the other predominantly dark. Shorts would match the jumpers in terms of colour and tone.

Not sure about the three jumpers thing. If a team can do the job with two, more power to them. I think that Adelaide, Brisbane, Carlton, Essendon, Fremantle, Gold Coast, Port Adelaide, St Kilda and the Bulldogs with their current clash guernseys fit into this category...no problems with any of those - as long as they wear them. Sydney would, if it had its current clash guernsey as a home and then went with a red version (similar to North Adelaide in the SANFL), job done. Same with West Coast and the old yellow peril and current royal blue away design

The teams with half/half white and blue/black striped/hooped guernseys should have a third guernsey which accentuates the primary colour of its home guernsey (i.e. Collingwood removing a white stripe, North Melbourne removing a blue stripe and Geelong removing a blue hoop) when they are the away team in a game between Collingwood and North Melbourne/Geelong. Collingwood had previously done this in one or two games against North, to its credit.

Then, each week someone with a spare 5 minutes on their hands takes a look at the 2 teams and puts the following process in place:
1. Home team wears their preferred uniform as previously nominated by the club.
2. Depending on the home team's jumper, the AFL nominate one of the 2 away jumpers that least clashes with the home jumper.
3. A communiqué is sent to all 16 clubs telling them which jumpers they will be wearing.
4. A further communiqué is sent to the umpires telling them which colour strip they will be wearing.
5. Any club, or umpires, not conforming to AFL's directive will be fined $50,000, $100,000 for a second offence.

Should be done at the start of the season, not weekly, as far as I'm concerned. You never know what match-ups will come up in the finals, so each team must have a strip that will work to create a sufficient distinction when it is playing away against any team in the league

I'm no graphic designer, but it's not hard to figure out how we could get the remaining teams (not mentioned above) sorted.

GWS: The Giants' problem isn't with its current clash (which is a bit boring, but does the job), it's that its home guernsey has too much dark on the front of it and not enough orange. Just a few touches to make orange a dominant colour on the front and GWS is set.

Hawthorn: I'd say the brown heritage guernsey with the monogram from the mid-2000s would be a suitable second guernsey and another version of that with the colours reversed would work as a third. Might need to work out a white version (instead of the gold) with West Coast's current home guernsey. Who didn't love that guernsey?

Melbourne: Current clash is ok, but a bit dodgy against St Kilda. Probably a reversed version of the home guernsey (probably with a smaller monogram) would be a good second guernsey, with the current clash as a third option against Essendon and possibly Adelaide.

Richmond: Reverse the colours (or do claw marks, or a swirl or something, if it causes an issue due to the similarity with the WA state of origin guernsey that WA doesn't even bloody wear and hasn't for some time, it should be noted). They'd probably need something else against West Coast, so that white guernsey with the yellow and black sash looks like a good option

It can be as simple as that, but for some reason the AFL can't deal with it. You don't see this crap in any other sport. Aussie Rules likes to think it's a professional organization but in reality it's just an amateur sport with a TV deal.

The worst part is where Team A wears its clash guernsey as the away team against Team B. Then the return fixture comes and, surprise, surprise, Team B is in its regular guernsey with white shorts. Or Adelaide will wear its regular guernsey with white shorts in away fixtures against Port, but would never do that against Carlton, or Melbourne, or Fremantle. And vice versa with Port Adelaide, when it wouldn't do that against Richmond, or Essendon, or West Coast.

I don't watch a lot of games not involving Hawthorn because, quite frankly, the contemporary game annoys the crap out of me, and I'm not just talking about the way the game is played. However, what I can't understand about my club is our away strip is darker than our home one, and on many occasions creates a clash which wouldn't have happened had we just worn our normal jumper. This just staggers me. Common sense appears to be a luxury that is in very short supply amongst football administrators.

Complete with white shorts. It's comical.

 

[radiojake]

so apparently Adelaide will wear all white today against Collingwood....

wouldn't that be too much white on the field?

will have to wait til I see it - Will be at the game...

 

[Scodog10]

so apparently Adelaide will wear all white today against Collingwood....

wouldn't that be too much white on the field?

will have to wait til I see it - Will be at the game...

Collingwood's home strip has three white stripes on the front, three small white stripes on the back and white numbers all up totalling maybe 10-15% of the strip.

In matches where Collingwood have worn the predominantly black strip v Geelong, North Melbourne, West Coast (in the strip they wore on Friday night), Fremantle and Port Adelaide I have never once sat back and thought to myself "jeez there's too much white out there today".

The Adelaide clash strip looks like a pile of puke that's what the real issue is!

 

[radiojake]

The Adelaide clash strip looks like a pile of puke that's what the real issue is!

Yes that is true -

I think I'm bummed mostly because this morning I woke up thinking "Yay, I'll actually get to see Adelaide play in their home jumper today..." based on the precedence of always playing against Collingwood with the home jumper...

oh well

 

[Scodog10]

Yes that is true -

I think I'm bummed mostly because this morning I woke up thinking "Yay, I'll actually get to see Adelaide play in their home jumper today..." based on the precedence of always playing against Collingwood with the home jumper...

oh well

I know the feeling. It's a sub-concious thing, but we always seem to struggle in our predominantly white strip.

 

[edgie]

Yes that is true -

I think I'm bummed mostly because this morning I woke up thinking "Yay, I'll actually get to see Adelaide play in their home jumper today..." based on the precedence of always playing against Collingwood with the home jumper...

oh well

Why don't you guys ever try with a yellow Guernsey? Pretty sure you've had a few red ones but yellow is the lighter colour so could maybe get away with it in place of white?



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[Kram]

I hate teams like Adelaide, Melbourne and West Coast wearing white when it's not part of their traditional colours at all.

 

[radiojake]

Hopefully Adelaide start using their SANFL jumper as a clash...

It's still predominantly white, but atleast it looks like a bloody football jumper

 

[mcgarnacle]

How hard can this issue be? Get each club to register three jumpers, a preferred or home jumper and two completely different away jumpers. One of these away jumpers would be predominantly light, and the other predominantly dark. Shorts would match the jumpers in terms of colour and tone.

Then, each week someone with a spare 5 minutes on their hands takes a look at the 2 teams and puts the following process in place:
1. Home team wears their preferred uniform as previously nominated by the club.
2. Depending on the home team's jumper, the AFL nominate one of the 2 away jumpers that least clashes with the home jumper.
3. A communiqué is sent to all 16 clubs telling them which jumpers they will be wearing.
4. A further communiqué is sent to the umpires telling them which colour strip they will be wearing.
5. Any club, or umpires, not conforming to AFL's directive will be fined $50,000, $100,000 for a second offence.

shouldn't be a need to take it completely out of the clubs hands.

what's needed are effective regulations which the clubs must follow and this means the AFL must enforce them consistently.

a situation where a home club are directed to avoid match-day strip similarities because the designated away club do not have an alternative kit which will avoid these similarities, is ridiculous for a billion-dollar league.

It's the AFL that appear incompetent when the events leading up to those for the match between WCE vs RIC are considered. It's a failure of policy, and something they should be able to regulate easily.

 

[mcgarnacle]

so apparently Adelaide will wear all white today against Collingwood....

wouldn't that be too much white on the field?

will have to wait til I see it - Will be at the game...

What do you do?

Collingwood's jersey is predominantly white on the front and black on back.

Adelaide have a predominantly navy kit. With white shorts it'll blend in ridiculously with the front of Collingwood's jersey. Furthermore, the two home jerseys will blend in from the back.

Adelaide's predominantly all-white kit is probably the best choice out of the 3 combinations.

 

[im_a_lazy_sod]

I hate teams like Adelaide, Melbourne and West Coast wearing white when it's not part of their traditional colours at all.

Same. Adelaide and West Coast could easily use yellow and make their alternate jumpers look sexy in the process. Melbourne is a bit different as they have two pretty dark colours, so White is an okay option I guess.

 

[JohnnyFontane90]

I hate teams like Adelaide, Melbourne and West Coast wearing white when it's not part of their traditional colours at all.

this is what tradition gets you...

teams need to have one traditional home strip, one all white away strip, and one third strip in an arbitrary colour in case the first two don't adequately provide enough contrast.

west coast had to wear white strip at home because Richmond's clash strip didn't provide adequate contrast. I don't like that WCE had to do that, but common sense prevailed over the traditionalists who still read books by candle light. to avoid this in future Richmond need to have better clash strip.