The ever-changing Dubs

How has the ‘look’ of Gaelic football’s most storied rivalry changed over the years?

Until the mid-’70s, a picture of a Dublin-Kerry game might not have given any clue as to the year, or even the decade, as there were little changes to strips. Even when the Dubs broke out the then-revolutionary navy shorts, kit design stayed relatively constant.

Obviously, since the advent of sponsorship and the increase in the sale of replica shirts, change is far more commonplace but some counties change faster than others.

Tomorrow’s match is the sixth championship campaign Dublin and Kerry have met since counties carried logos on their shirts, and a perusal of pictures of previous clashes shows the Metropolitans are far more adventurous with their styles.

Perhaps the constancy of Kerry’s sponsorship with the Kerry Group helps to reaffirm the classic look, with the sleeves the only area change is apparent. Dublin vary the amount of navy on the shirt – and alternate sock colour – with each change.

In 2004, for instance, it could be argued the jersey had more navy than sky blue, while the ’10 shirt carried very little trim. As the team that sells the most shirts, there is almost an onus to provide more differentiation with each new shirt.

“There certainly would be an element of that in it,” said Dublin chairman Andy Kettle. “At the same time, if you showed me all the jerseys from the last 10 years laid out alongside each other, I’d be hard pressed to tell you which was from which time period!

“We’ll have to change now again at the end of this year as we’ll be getting a new sponsor. Whether that will involve a brand new design would be subject to consultation.”

Getting a jersey from the drawing board to the playing pitch involves at least four distinct stakeholders, in Dublin at least, according to Kettle.

“There would be a few different parties involved,” he said.

“Obviously, the county board and the manufacturers O’Neills would be in discussion and the process for the last couple of years has been that the sponsor is involved too. As well as that, the team management might give some inputs, as to whether they’d want the jerseys to be tight-fitting or whatever.

“O’Neills would then produce two or three different prototypes, we look at all of them and then decide which would be best-suited to us.”

The white trim and slight curve on the current outfit is about as much deviation as Kerry will allow on their gold hoop.

“The green with a gold band is ours, that could never be allowed to change,” said Kerry chairman Patrick O’Sullivan.

“We’ve seen other counties change, Mayo got rid of the hoop and Sligo went from white to black, but we feel that gold hoop represents all the good things that have happened to Kerry down through the years.

“We’d have to wear the Munster colours every so often against Meath or Offaly, but that would be about it.”

O’Neills, Kerry’s gear partners since 2000, have been accommodating in this regard, with no attempts at radically changing the style. What was worn by Mick O’Connell is not all that different from that of Jack O’Shea or Johnny Buckley, when the passage of time is allowed for.