I have quite enjoyed watching the rugby so far; the Argentinian side has been a revelation; some of the South Pacific sides have played with their customary bravery and gusto; even England, after a stuttering start, look a bit better. The side that is – supposedly – fancied to win the contest this year by many observers are the New Zealand All-Blacks.
So you can imagine my befuddlement yesterday afternoon when I watched the game with friends down in deepest Suffolk. The shirts of the ‘All-Blacks’ were covered in a sort of grey-blue, while the Scots, instead of their old, neat blue shirts with the old Thistle emblem, instead had some weird grey-blue stripes on top of some other colours. At a distance, it was actually pretty hard to tell the two sides apart, colour-wise. I understand all the marketing stuff that goes on in sports these days but is not a fairly basic notion that you can tell one side apart from the other? I mean, during the thick of a rugby match, for example, it might actually be a good idea for teams to be easily able to recognise one another. As a friend of mine put it yesterday, the referee should have ordered one side off the pitch to change into recognisable shirts.
The whole thing was bizarre. Mind you, New Zealand won by a large distance, to no-one’s great surprise.
If you think those are bad, consider the uniforms the Philadelpia Eagles (NFL) wore yesterday. Instead of wearing their customary green, silver, and white they wore these hideous “throwback uniforms“. Those are, without a doubt, the ugliest uniforms I’ve ever seen a football team wear.
As far as the Mainly-Greys are concerned, I blame one day Cricket. When ODIs were first played in coloured outfits, NZ were apparently unable to use their preferred black because it was too hot to wear all day in the field. So at first they played in beige (that was an ugly kit, although strangely it’s gained a sort of cult status among their fans) then later, grey. Now, thanks to the wonders of modern science, black kit that doesn’t send players temperatures soaring is available, and used by the cricketers, but the precedent was set for beige and grey to be NZ colours.
I think the Scots were trying to look like Cybermen, as their only hope of scaring the Kiwis.
Those Eagles look like they should be in a musical. Probably called “Touchdown!”