Jun
2

The History of the Newcastle United Football Shirt

Author: editor Cat: Football

During the 1880s two football clubs emerged as offshoots of cricket clubs and by 1892 Newcastle East End FC had become the strongest team in the city. Newcastle West End struggled both on the field and financially and in 1892 they went into liquidation. The East End club moved rapidly to take over their assets, including their superior St James Park ground . To signify the unification of the East and West sides of the city, the new club was christened Newcastle United. They continued to play in East End’s red until 1894 when they chose black and white stripes on their football shirts to avoid frequent colour clashes. Curiously, although the new name was accepted by the FA from September 1892, it was not until 1895 that Newcastle United was legally constituted.

In 1893 United were elected to one of the the four vacancies created by the expansion of Division Two. In 1898, Newcastle contested the test matches to decide promotion and relegation but missed out in the mini-league competition. Following allegations that the test match between Burnley and Stoke had been fixed, it was decided to expand the League with four additional places. Newcastle and Blackburn were voted into Division One (rendering the test matches meaningless). Promotion and relegation issues after this were decided automatically until the introduction of play-offs as we now them now in the nineties.

The Edwardian period proved to be Newcastle’s golden age. With a squad dominated by gifted Scots, United won three League titles (1905, 1907, 1909) and reached five FA Cup Finals (1905, 1906, 1909, 1910 and 1911) but won only once, in 1910. The city’s coat of arms showed up on the team’s home football shirts for the first time in 1911.

After the Great War, “The Magpies” won the FA Cup again in 1924 and three years later were League Champions for the fourth time (1927).  In 1932 United beat Arsenal in the FA Cup final with an unforgetable goal that was later seen to have been scored from a cross after the ball had crossed the line . Two years later the club was relegated to Division Two.

The coat of arms of the City of Newcastle appeared on team football shirts in the FA Cup Final of 1920 (and in at least some league games the following season). It was worn in every FA Cup Final United played in after this but did not appear in Football League matches until 1969-70. The scroll underneath the crest was slightly different to that worn in the 1911 final.

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