h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Green shirts ..and white shorts, eh?
Hmmm..

So that when they fall down the opposition is more likely to step on their tops.


~j~

Just for clarification the White shirt / Black shorts varient is the German alternative kit.

No one close yet but ~jwf~ has the best so far.

Just a shot in the dark .....

Is it anything to do with the way the colours appear on TV?

Or to clear up confusion with opposing teams??

Dunno nuffin' about sport

Is the ALT kit for away games?
Most NorthAm sports (baseball,football,hockey) the teams have two kits. One for home games and one for away. While no doubt this first arose from the realities of laundry schedules it has evolved. The home uniform is usually quite flash and designed to incite active and passionate loyalty and patriotism in home fans, while the away kit is more subdued, less inclined to incite animosity in opposing fans in far away places.
~j~

So you do not see how easy and often they fall down in a "schwalbe" to trick the ref.

Or maybe because they are so hated that the "supporters" cannot see where to throw the bottles, lighters and whatever projectiles they want to use.

The two kits concept is so that they don't clash with the colours of opposing teams. There are after all only so many combinations of plain or striped shirts that you can have. The "home" strip tends never to change in its colour design for reasons of tradition, the "away" strip changes as often as the marketing people can get away with.

Oddly the English football team prefer wearing their away strip of red shirts, as this was the colour shirt worn when the team won the World Cup back in 66.

The answer? Nothing to do with TV. They've been wearing it since the swastika logo dropped out of fashion in 45.

Sadly its nothing to do with camouflage either.

hmm...tricky...
^. .^
= ' =

Will leave a clue tomorrow.

Hmmm, so in the '66 world cup final both teams wore their second strips?

Let's see, white symbolises peace and green... um,

*thinks*

Catholicism? Nature? Envy?

Perhaps they just wanted colours as far away from red & black as possible.

They like the colours?

The Clue - Konrad

Oh and Dr.StJ whilst not barking up the right tree at the moment, is certianly sniffing around the right part of the wood

Urban myth or not the Ireland story may be the best we've got. After extensive research I have 2 possible answers involving Ireland.

1) Everyone refused to play Germany after WWII except Ireland. Germany changed to a green strip after that match in honour of Ireland accepting to play them.

OR

2) After the match the teams swapped shirts. However Germany were unable to replace their shirts for their next match and had to play in the Irish shirts.

That urban myth about the Irish shirts is so very widespread these days. There honestly is not a grain of truth in it.

I do like the shirt swapping answer. But you'd have thought that if they didn't have any replacement shirts, they wouldn't have given them away in the first place.

There appears to be a few German Konrad's about at this time. Maybe one of them sponsored the team strip and that was his favourite colour?

Green represents the forests and white the mountains of Bavaria?

And the Konrad may be Konrad Adenauer, who liked that colors and forced the Manschafft to use them.

And the Konrad may be Konrad Adenauer, who liked that colors and forced the Manschafft to use them.

They needed a different colour strip from the old Nazi variety, and Konrad Adenauer suggested Green & White, which by sheer coincidence happens to be the old heraldic colours of his Rhienland home

Well done Marjin. Practically everyone skirted around the right answer, but identifying the Konrad was obviously the main point.