Having referenced the 1970s with the primary kit, and the late 1980s with the change, the Tigers have dug even deeper into the past for the third kit as they mine the club’s sartorial heritage to good effect.
It is the mid 1930s that provides the inspiration for the third, completing the outfield set by using the aesthetics of a 91 year old ‘home’ kit to provide an alternative to the amber, black and white elements of the first two kits launched for use on our travels.
Oxen’s third kit recreates the attire worn by the club in 1935/36, when they spent a season wearing blue and white and sporting the first shirt badge in club history, the three coronet crowns that have been the city’s Coat of Arms since the 1400’s. This kit can be seen in the 1935 British Pathé film ‘Famous Football Teams In Training No.1 – Hull City’, which shows new manager and former England captain J.H. Hill putting his side through their paces.
The Tigers had worn amber and black stripes, the shirt style that inspired the big cat nickname, since their founding in 1904, with the main change in style being the switch from black shorts to white ‘knickerbockers’ as they were then known for most of the 1920s and early 1930s (a look recreated in the 1970s and indeed again for 2026/27).
That was a minor alteration compared to the wholesale change to blue and white, which according to the Hull Daily Mail had supporters “speculating on the description to be applied to the team in the future. ‘True Blues’, ‘Blue Jackets’, ’Jack Tars’ (sailors) and ‘Pansies’ are among others I have heard suggested.” He later confirmed “the tone of blue to be favoured by Hull City in their change of colours next season is Royal blue, which I believe is this year’s most fashionable shade.”
Despite the colour change, the Tigers nickname persisted, as evidenced by a comic strip which showed three blue shirted tigers menacing an opponent.
Polyester, the material used to make modern kits, is a far cry from the heavy drill cotton jerseys and shorts worn with knitted wool socks in the 1930s, but Oxen have been aesthetically faithful to the kit that provided the inspiration.
That includes a beautifully cut white polo collar with blue and gold tipping trim, attached to a smart two button placket. The original shirts came in long sleeves with white cuffs, and a ‘short sleeves’ look was achieved by rolling the sleeves up. This new shirt gives short sleeves a white cuff with the same blue and gold tipping trim as the polo collar, but it’s on the long sleeved versions where the cuffs look best, since they’re longer and more pronounced.
Oxen’s willingness to produce long sleeved shirts when Umbro and Kappa didn’t want to know is a real feather in their cap. They even produce ‘keeper jerseys in both long and shorts sleeves, when Kappa would only produce long sleeve versions and a club staffer had to cut the sleeves off and overlock stitch them so the goalkeepers could have their preferences met. But, I digress…
Sometimes it’s an intricate pattern that stands out on a shirt, we’re a club with a famous animal print in our polyester pantheon after all, but sometimes astute colour blocking is all that’s needed for a lovely shirt. That was the case for Umbro’s ‘Navy Peony’ and ‘Deep Lagoon’ third shirts, and it’s the case here when there’s no exotic sounding Pantone name. The vivid shade of blue on the body combined with white collar and cuffs accented with gold is enough, and looks great.
As does the crest application. The civic Coat of Arms (“Azure, three ducal coronets in Pale Or”) that was also our first shirt ‘badge’ is fully embroidered here, with a gold shield outline and two tone gold used to detail the strawberry leaves and gemmed band. It is a beautiful treatment of the three coronets on a shirt.
As on the primary and change shirts, part of the Shane Rhodes poem ‘The City Speaks’ is applied to the inside neck, a poetic thread that connects the 2026/27 set. “Before The Three Coronets Were Stamped we Punched Our Gold With H For Hull”, apt and stirring.
The tiger-head has been added to the semi-circular back neck panel as a sop to those who feel that not having it on a shirt is somehow sacrilegious (it really isn’t) and is attractively picked out in gold. That panel is attached to Raglan sleeves will ensure a snug fit across the shoulders, because who wants fabric bunching on their shoulders eh?
The white shorts carry the three coronets crest too and gold trimmed blue hem bands embellish them. Hooped socks in blue and white provide a strong finish, this matches the 1935/36 home kit and also visually connects this kit to the current primary with its hooped hose.
Though the training, travel and warm-up gear have done little to excite me, I have loved Oxen’s match kits so far, and this one is probably my favourite of the three. We’ve never found out why Hull City went with blue at home in 1935/36, the newspapers of the time acknowledge the change without providing any explanation.
We know why City wore pale blue shirts in 1946, that was about post-war austerity and the unavailability of certain dyes, but we can only speculate about 1935, though the use of the civic emblem points to a desire to visually represent the city by using the colours on it’s Coat of Arms.
In recent years, it can be said that the two rugby clubs have done far more to note and honour the city of Hull and its history through kits than City have, and the pair have treated the three coronets as their own personal emblem while the Tigers have stuck just to a tiger-head. This kit honours not only our fine city at the confluence of the Hull and Humber, but our own club’s kit history too.
Though I tend to prefer white shirted change kits (and I’m pleased that we have one this year) I acknowledge that a light tone for the away when bright amber is your main colour (especially on shirts that are predominantly solid amber such as last season’s) isn’t providing enough contrast now that the footballing authorities take the 4.5% or three million people in the UK population that contend with colour blindness into consideration.
Blue is ideal for an alternate change or third kit for the Tigers, it’s dark enough to be significantly of contrast to amber, it’s the precise opposite of amber when you invert colours, and it has local meaning, appearing on not just Hull’s Coat of Arms but also on the flags of East Riding and wider Yorkshire.
With some notable exceptions I’ve like most of the match kits supplied by Umbro and Kappa Türkiye in recent years, and the more I consider it, this blue and white kit isn’t just my favourite of the three Oxen kits, based on aesthetics alone I’ll say it’s one of my favourite kits of the last decade.
Launch
I’ve enjoyed the club using the city itself as a feature in the launches of all three kits, leaning into the overall theme of “The City Speaks”, and that feels even more significant for a kit featuring the emblem of the city.
This time it was the turn of the recently re-opened Maritime Museum, inside the former Dock Offices building that opened in 1841, near the Wilberforce Memorial which was finished in 1835.
Fascinatingly, at least to me, the Doric column and statue was moved after a hundred years, to the eastern end of the new Queen’s Gardens (on the site of the old Queen’s Dock) in 1935, the year we switched to blue shirts, white shorts and hooped socks.
The new third kit looks great in the salubrious setting of the Court Room in the third floor of the Maritime Museum.
Overall
I’m truly delighted to see the three coronets emblazoned 1935 kit given a modern makeover, the gold trim really enhances the simple blue and white stylings. I’m looking forward to picking up a long sleeved version.