In order to avoid a colour clash when on the road, the Tigers have occasionally mixed and matched elements of primary and change kits.

On other occasions they’ve had to procure items not part of the season’s kitset for an individual game, and in rare instances, they’ve been forced to borrow items of from opponents. The shame.

Here we attempt to catalogue every example of what we call a mash-up.

There are distinct types of mash-up, codified thusly…

MUSKI – Mash-Up from Stocked Kitset Items: So, away shorts worn with the shirts and socks of the primary kit for example. Your most common type of mash-up, sometimes an on the day decision, but usually planned by the kitman.

MUBI – Mash-Up featuring Borrowed Items: Perhaps the most notorious example is City taking only the ‘flint’ grey change kit to Newcastle in 2008, necessitating City borrowing the home sides white adidas shorts and socks from the Geordie’s away kit.  Embarrassing, and the result of a failure of planning from the kitman.

MUNKI – Mash-Up featuring Non Kitset Items: When mixing and matching items from the current kitset won’t cut it, and mash-up need is established before City arrive at an opponent’s ground, the kitman will have used foresight to find something else that fits the bill, such as when white Umbro shorts bought from the Harrogate branch of Sports Direct were used with the Diadora home shirts and socks at Sheffield Wednesday in 2004.

v. Fulham (1959/60)

City travelled to the capital in January 1960 to face Fulham in the FA Cup, and were promptly sent packing by the Cottagers, who won 5-0. City wore the white shorts and socks if the away kit with the home shirts. In the pic, Jimmy ‘Chisel Chin’ Hill scores past Billy Bly, who retired at the end of the 1959/60 season.

v. Chelsea (1976/77)

The Tigers ended the 1976/77 Second Division campaign in the capital, with back to back away games against Chelsea and Leyton Orient (just Orient back then). At Stamford Bridge, they faced an already promoted Chelsea side who returned to the top flight with a squad of promising youths (Ray Wilkins, Steve Finnieston) and grizzled veterans (Peter Bonetti, Ron Harris).

For their part, City had steered clear of relegation, but it certainly wasn’t down to away form: John Kaye’s men recorded just one win on their travels that year (at Plymouth). Without the injured Billy Bremner, City crashed to a 4-0 defeat at the new look ‘Bridge’, which now featured a brooding new East Stand.

City’s standard change look in 1976/77 was white-black-black since the primary kit featured white shorts and socks, but Chelsea’s white socks ruled out that option so City went with white-white-black, using the primary shorts with the change shirts and socks.

v. Spurs (1980/81)

Pairing the white away shorts with the shirts and socks of the home kit solved a multitude of clashes in the first adidas kit era (1980-82), the most notable instance coming in an FA Cup tie at Tottenham in April 1981. Mike Smith’s Tigers had made it to the Fourth Round of the FA Cup after defeating Halifax, Blyth Spartans (at the third attempt) and Doncaster, to earn a trip to White Hart Lane, but the tie against top flight Tottenham resulted in a 2-0 elimination, with goals from Brook and Archibald.

v. Wigan (1983/84)

Red was added to the City colour palette when Don Robinson became chairman in 1982, and the tertiary tone wasn’t restricted to the primary kit in the form of pinstripes on the shirt and the main sock colour. A set of red shorts was produced for use with the white change shirts with black pinstripes, and on occasion they were used with the ‘home’ shirt on our travels. One such instance came in early October 1983 when City travelled to Wigan’s Springfield Park for a 1-1 draw.

v. Exeter (1983/84)

The look was replicated in early December 1983 when the Tigers visited ‘the other St. James Park’, in Exeter. A Bobby McNeil goal wasn’t enough as City lost 2-1 to the Grecians, who would end the season rock bottom of the Third Division. Pictured are Exeter player-manager Gerry Francis, and City’s Steve McClaren and Billy Whitehurst.

v. Barnsley (1989/90)

The away kit’s red shorts were deemed not suitable against Barnsley’s red and white, so City combined the white away shirt with the black shorts and amber socks of the primary kit in a 1-1 draw at Oakwell.

v. Blackpool (1991/92)

Dave Bamber had a relatively quick reunion with the Tigers, facing them just over a year after he left following a somewhat disastrous nine month spell at Boothferry Park. City drew Blackpool, Bamber’s first (and last) club in the FA Cup in 1991/92, necessitating a rather ugly MUSKI mash-up. The green and white chequered away shirt was combined with the black shorts and socks of the primary kit. City won 1-0 courtesy of a Paul Hunter goal, which set up a third round tie against Chelsea.

v. Fulham (1992/93)

A straightforward MUSKI type mash-up at Craven Cottage in October 1992, with the attention grabbing original tiger stripe shirt (and primary socks) matched with the white change shorts for a pulsating 3-3 draw.

v. Bradford (1995/96)

An unusual but nonetheless lovely all-maroon away kit necessitated a third kit in 1995/96, primarily for use at Bradford, whose claret and amber colourway ruled out both our primary and secondary choice kits. An all-white third kit was produced, one never made commercially available, and curiously one never used in the planned configuration. There was no sock clash, since the Bantams wore black socks at home, yet the Tigers elected to wear the amber sock of the home kit at Valley Parade in a 1-1 draw. The only time the full third kit was worn was in the squad photo, by the coaching staff and physiotherapist.

v. Newcastle (1997/98)

None of our mash-up types really cover this, but MUNKI comes closest. When City went to Newcastle for a Coca-Cola Cup tie in 1997/98, their reward for knocking out Premier League Crystal Palace in the previous round, they played in the all-white away kit. Only the socks were non-standard issue, whereas previously the white socks had amber cuffs and woven SL letters, for this game and this game only, they were black. The ref wore all-black, meaning the kits of the home side, away side and the officials were all in two main colours. You wouldn’t see that these days.

v. Bolton (1998/99)

The ‘Great Escape’ season home shirt had a remarkable amount of white on it, with alternating vertical bands that gradated from amber to white or from white to amber, separated by thin black stripes. This meant that the shirt didn’t look odd when paired with the white shorts and socks of the change kit. Such an occurrence took place early in the 1998/99 campaign, in a League Cup game at the Reebok Stadium, the first leg of a two-legged Round Two tie. The game ended 3-1 to Bolton, with David Brown netting the goal for the Tigers. The tie ended 6-3 to Bolton on aggregate after the second leg ended 3-2 at Boothferry Park.

v. Cheltenham (2003/04)

The Tigers tipped up at Whaddon Road in November 2003 for an FA Cup first round tie, and wore all black in the 3-1 defeat. Nothing odd about that you might think, our away kit was all-black, and had already been used once before at Rochdale in the September. The crucial difference was the socks: the regular away kit socks were black with amber foldover bands split by a black stripe. These had black foldover bands with a thin amber stripe sandwiched by two thin white stripes. These socks were part of the goalkeeper kitset and mostly used by netmen in the first year of the home kit’s two year lifespan (2002/03), strange then that were pressed into outfield use, making this a non-standard MUSKI.

v. Sheffield Wednesday (2004/05)

Perhaps the most celebrated of modern MUNKI examples, when owner Adam Pearson picked up a joblot of white Umbro shorts (with thankfully tonal branding) from Sports Direct in Harrogate on the day to avoid a clash with Sheffield Wednesday’s black shorts in our first trip to Hillsborough in fourteen years, and the first big test of our promotion credentials following elevation to League One. Several thousand Tiger Nationals made the trip and saw a mashed-up City take the game to the hosts, with the Tigers winning 4-2, largely down to a sublime two-goal performance from England’s Nick Barmby, who had joined his hometown club several months earlier. Micheal Keane and Danny Allsopp also netted, and the confidence generated by this win was beyond measurement, proving true boss Peter Taylor’s promise to ‘attack League One’. A white shorted Barmby celebrating in front of City fans in the Leppings Lane end is an iconic image from that promotion season.

v. Blackpool (2007/08)

Hull City’s first £1 Million transfer fee paid caused a great deal of excitement in late August 2007, when Caleb Folan, briefly a loanee at City in 2001, signed from Wigan. Folan went straight into the line-up for a televised Monday night game at Blackpool, where City mashed-up (MUSKI) by pairing the black home shorts with the white shirts and socks of the change kit. It was an inauspicious beginning for Folan, who was taken to hospital after being stretchered off  wearing a neck brace as the Tigers lost 2-1.

v. Doncaster (2010/11)

The reality of relegation from the Premier League hit home when City made a first ever trip to Doncaster’s Keepmoat Stadium, which in 2006 replaced the ‘Earth Stadium’. That might sound like a wondrous artificial biome that simulates a rainforest environment and teems with exotic life, but it was just the decrepit old Belle Vue ground given an undignified moniker by a Rotherham based finance company in it’s final years. Wearing the primary shirts over the white change shorts and socks, the Tigers lost 3-1 as they came to terms with life back in The Championship.

v. Sheffield Wednesday (2019/20)

Mash-ups are a common occurrence when the Tigers travel to Hillsborough, it’s the black shorts y’see. A simple pairing of home shirts with away shorts and socks did the trick on this visit, A Jarrod Bowen finish from a George Honeyman cross was enough for City to take all three points from the short trip to South Yorkshire.

v. Sheffield United (2022/23)

The decision to retain the unprecedentedly popular ‘Blackout’ 2021/22 change kit as the 2022/23 third kit meant that City had two kits, primary and third, with black shorts and socks. What’s more an EFL rule change at the start of 2021/22 effectively outlawed alternate shorts, short clashes were no longer considered an issue and so clubs could now register three kits and that’s it, there would be no more registering a fourth pair of shorts, such as the amber alternates City used on occasion. That caused a problem for the game at Sheffield United, not with the shorts, it no longer mattered that both sides had black ‘home’ shorts, but the black socks were the issue. So, City wore the white socks from the white-red-white change kit, which didn’t look too bad from afar, but in photographs you notice the red band on the socks, a colour that doesn’t appear on the primary kit.

v. Middlesbrough and Luton Town (2022/23)

The white shirted and red shorted change kits of the 1980s that the 2022/23 away kit nodded to lent themselves to interchangeability. Naturally, so does the modern interpretation, and for two games City demonstrated the adaptability of the primary and change kits by pairing the black ‘home’ shorts with the away kits’ white shirts and socks at Middlesbrough where the Tigers played well but lost 3-1 in April, and on the final day of a World Cup interrupted season, at Luton in early May where a 0-0 draw was ground out.