So it’s confirmed, 24-years after Ireland’s disaster in an orange jersey, it’s back!
The Irish soccer team will wear their new orange jersey in their final 2022 World cup qualifier against Luxembourg on November 14.
I am still of the firm belief, Ireland should not wear orange and should stick to green and white as their colours.
The last orange jersey was worn just twice. Once famously in a 3-2 defeat to Macedonia back in 1997. Ireland were awful against what were then a total new comer to world football.
Alan McLoughlin gave Ireland the lead early in the first half and then it all fell apart. Two penalties later and Ireland were 2-1 down at half-time.
15 minutes into the second-half and Georgi Hristov buried an effort to make it 3-1! David Kelly pulled a goal back but the most memorable moment saw Jason McAteer’s red carded six minutes from time after performing a kung-fu kick on Artim Sakiri.
In the aftermath the jersey was declared unlucky and it would take a full 12 months for its next appearance.
That came in a home game with Mexico on May 23 1998. Ireland wearing their change strip for a home game just before the World Cup.
The day of May 23 saw Ireland north and south vote to approve the Good Friday agreement which had been signed six weeks earlier.
The Sky news report from the falls road noted “There was more controversy in Ireland wearing orange then in the result of the vote!”
A number of years ago I produced a documentary on the Dublin school boy soccer institute of St Kevin Boys. A club founded in 1959 who wear orange and black.
The club historian informed me “they couldn’t discover why the founders had picked orange as their colour, not the most popular colour in Dublin”.
Orange is a nice colour, don’t get me wrong and I actually owned that famous 1997/98 Ireland away jersey. Black replaced orange as the Ireland away kit (never worn) before white made a return for the 2002 world cup.
Just last month Ireland wore St Patrick’s blue for their game with Qatar, to mark the 100th anniversary of the FAI. Ireland as the FAI and the Irish FA wore blue as blue and white originally.
Other sports most definitely rugby only wear green and white.
Maybe I’m playing it safe but Ireland is still working to resolve flags, colours and emblems and that’s why the soccer should just stick to green and white.
