Thread by @jpstafford

A brief history of the Wales rugby shirt ahead of the #WALvENG game in this weekend's #SixNations.

A thread. 🧵

The scarlet shirt of Wales is one of the most iconic shirts in world rugby. Wales have worn red since their first game in 1881. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

Wales played their first international before the foundation of the Welsh Rugby Union. Players wore a red shirt with the Prince of Wales feathers. As can be seen from the team photo, the shirts were not 100% uniform and two players didn't even have the correct one.

The feathers are ostrich feathers. While they may well be the Prince of Wales’s feathers, the symbol's origin has no connection with the native Princes of Wales from days gone by. (Art here by Raluca Moldovan).

Legend – and a small sprinkling of historical detail – seems to trace the symbol back to Edward, the Black Prince (1330–76). He was the eldest son of Edward III, the King of England. His ‘Shield of Peace’ had three feathers on it. Legend states that...

... the Black Prince took the symbol from Blind King John of Bohemia after he was killed in the Battle of Crecy in 1346. Some say at the end of the fighting, Edward removed the ostrich feathers adorning the dead king and used them as inspiration for his own coat of arms.

He also took John’s motto, the medieval German phrase ‘Ich dien’ (‘I serve’). The story/legend claims that many of the soldiers fighting for the Black Prince were Welsh and the motto ‘Ich dien’ sounded like the Welsh phrase ‘Eich Dyn’, which means ‘Your Man’.

The phrase was also included eventually on Welsh international shirts. (Previous tweet showed image from 1900 and the below is from 1924, both images are from @wrugbymuseum and Rugby Relics).

The choice of that symbol was very interesting. England, Scotland and Ireland, all of whom formed international teams before Wales, chose to use floral emblems. England wore a rose (this is a shirt from their first match in 1871), Scotland a thistle and Ireland a shamrock.

It's not 100% clear why Wales ignored this convention. It is said some wanted a leek. It's possible figures in the WRU wanted to show Wales's loyalty to Empire. It's an issue that still causes debate to this day, as does the continued Royalist sympathies of the WRU.

For my book 'An Illustrated History of Welsh Rugby', I researched every single shirt Wales have officially worn between 1881 and 2022 (England book to follow next week, so keep following for more). @Polaris_Books

Essentially, Wales wore the same red shirt design from 1881 to the end of the 1991 World Cup, with only the material, cut, and style of the shirt changing. The feathers also changed slightly in design too. But it was, for all intents and purposes, the same shirt.

In 1992, Wales signed a deal with Cotton Traders to produce replica shirts. Prior to this, there were no official shirts and anybody could produce a red rugby shirt with three feathers on it and sell it.

The controversial new kit also included a copyrighted version of the three feathers, which removed the traditional motto and replaced it with the inspiring 'WRU'.

The shirt also included a Dragons logo on the sleeve. This was a short-lived attempt to give Wales a nickname and do something 'cool' that appeared to young kids. A magazine with this logo/name was launched to go along with it.

Oddly, the Wales alternate kit of the time did not have a Dragons logo on the sleeve (even though it appeared on the replica version of the same shirt).

Wales first wore an alternate shirt in 1987, when they met Tonga in the first World Cup. Wales had worn green against Tonga in 1974, but it was not a full Test. If anyone has footage/pictures from this, please do share them.

Originally, Wales only wore an alternate shirt when at home in a game there was a colour clash in. Nowadays, alternate kits are worn to help boost cash income from fans and are often worn when there is no clash on the field with an opponent's kit.

Many people believe that Cotton Traders were the first brand to have their logo on the Welsh shirt, but this isn't true. Umbro, who made the kit from the 1970s, had their logo on the shirt for one game in 1975 v Australia. Why this was I haven't yet figured out.

Interestingly, although Umbro would make the kit for many years from the 1970s to the early 1990s, Wales often wore tracksuits made by Adidas — a sign of different times when it came to contracts, sponsorship and branding.

Wales will likely follow teams such as England in adding player names to the back of their shirt soon.
Wales actually used to be the only Test team with names on the back, briefly using them early in the first Gatland era.

Wales haven't always worn numbers on their shirts. Numbers began coming in during the early 20th century, but wouldn't always be used in each game. When they did, the numbering system could see fullbacks wear 1, not, 15. This is the shirt of famed centre Gwyn Nicholls in 1905.

Wales v England in 1922 was the start of Wales/England consistently wearing numbers. Yet sometimes Wales wore no number 13 or, as can be seen here from the 1935 win over NZ, letters.

The first time Wales wore a shirt that was neither red nor green in an official Test match was during 1997 (made by Reebok).

The first time a sponsor appeared on a shirt, to the horror of traditionalists, was in 2000.

While never officially confirmed as the reason for the colour choice, the WRU wore a shirt in 2010 against Fiji that 'happened' to be the same colours as sponsor Admiral.

Classy, WRU. Classy.

Many Welsh fans feel that Wales perform poorly when wearing change kits. I once wrote a piece for @theeastterrace on whether Wales really are 'cursed' when they wear an alternate shirt in autumn games. theeastterrace.com/welsh-rugby-an…

Amazingly, in the early days of the 20th century, players were not given a shirt for each match (today they get more than one a game). WRU policy was 'All players must return old jerseys before obtaining new ones'.

In total, since the first Cotton Traders shirt arrived in 1992, Wales have had 51 shirts (including sponsorship/World Cup variations).

If you like this kind of thread/historical details, please consider buying one of these books. Both of which contain a full colour section detailing the history of Wales and England shirts (drawn by @AnneCakebread). amazon.co.uk/James-Stafford…

I will write a similar thread on the England shirt soon, so make sure to give us a follow and let England fans know too!