Amusingly and bemusingly, Hull City is facing a kit crisis when the FA Cup replay at Newcastle United comes round a week tomorrow.
The black and amber stripes can't be worn at St James' Park, while the vile grey change kit, donned by the players in the Premier League game there back in September, has no appropriate shorts or socks to go with it. The team was only able to sport that shirt in the 2-1 win if the players were given alternative shorts and socks, and so an all-white set of each was borrowed from the Newcastle kit man.
By all accounts, it seems that the club has asked Umbro for a special third kit to be produced in time for the match. Getting a new kit, mid-season, is presumably unprecedented, but it does fill a gap which Hull City had elected to leave open for the second season in a row.
The last third kit we had was the light blue affair which we used sparingly in the 2005 promotion season from League One, and the two seasons which followed in the Championship. The last time we wore it, to my best recollection, was under Phil Parkinson away at Norwich City in November 2006, where we achieved a 1-1 draw thanks to an injury time equaliser from Michael Turner. A fortnight or so earlier, we'd worn it for two matches in a row, achieving a rare win at Southend United (the 3-2 victory there was probably Parkinson's finest hour) and so, superstitious man that he was, he insisted on keeping the light blue for the trip to Southampton, where we grabbed a 0-0 draw.
Since then, the home kit (all amber last season, black and amber stripes this) and the three second kits (black shirts with white and amber trim in 2006-7; all white last season and the charcoal grey this) has been sufficient, albeit with occasional forced adoption of mismatched shorts and socks, an innovation we usually had to endure whenever we visited Luton Town (amber shorts with the home shirt) and Sheffield Wednesday (white shorts with the home shirt).
Given that at Newcastle we can't wear either of our existing kits, nor the two main change kits of the last two seasons (that's just for colour reasons, never mind the issues with outdated manufacturers), a return to pastel blue, as a one-off, may be in order. Again, an outdated manufacturer (Diadora), plus an outdated sponsor (Bonus) stops us from just digging out the old pastel blue of the League One and Championship days and therefore this new kit, whatever it ends up as, will become something of a collector's item, given that we're unlikely to need it again at any point during the season.
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