Red top registered for Wycombe away game
Carlisle United will wear a newly registered red-white-red strip for the Wycombe away trip following consultation between the match referee, The Football League and the clubs this week.
Kit manager Colin Nixon contacted Saturday’s match official Rob Lewis on Tuesday to clear the use of United’s black away kit, but a concern over a potential clash with the dark blue squares on the home shirt was raised at that point.
Colin Nixon said: “The referee was concerned that the deep dark blue on the Wycombe home top was too close to the black we were going to wear. He also ruled out our home kit as the alternative option because of the light blue squares present on the Wycombe shirt.
“We spoke to Wycombe to see if they would wear their away strip for the game, but that was also ruled out as an option.
“Our club secretary Sarah McKnight then spoke to The Football League and the guidelines on the use and registration of a third strip were confirmed. We were given clearance on Thursday morning to go forward with a red shirt, white shorts and red socks combination and we quickly set about marking up the shirts with the necessary logos, names and numbers.
“A very quick turnaround was needed but I’m very pleased to say we are now in a position to use the newly registered strip.”
Sales and Marketing Director Phil King said: “Kits are registered with The Football League before the first ball of the season is kicked but we have a system in place where we always double-check potential kit clashes in the week leading up to the game.
“We felt our black away kit was enough of a difference for this to be nothing more than a courtesy check but, unfortunately, that did not turn out to be the case. Other clubs have fallen foul of this in the recent past, and have received fines when they’ve had to use opposition strips on the day, so we are happy that our system of checks highlighted this problem early enough for us to reach a satisfactory, if unusual, solution.”