Early Barrow Strip

[The Exile]

Does anyone know where I can find a photo of the Barrow strip (with colours if possible) c1900ish.

[Duff]

http://www.historicalkits.co.uk/Barrow/Barrow.htm

[Hadrian]

Colour photos only became in any way common from the mid 1939s so anything before colour is open to interpretation. 'Colours' - shades of grey - on b&w photos vary depend on exposure length.

Not sure the colour of shirts in the early decade would be consistently the sort of bright blue shown in the web page linked above.

Looking at photos in the Gardner/Yelland/McWilliams 'BAFC The First Hundred Years' book may give us some clues. We can't be sure that all kits would be the first choice - though since all except for that from 1910-11 are staged team photos it seems safe to assume it is the normal kit rather than, for example a change kit or one borrowed from opponents to avoid a clash. (My speculation in brackets with twin question marks.)

1901-2 Striped shirts (black and white documented elsewhere) with lighter mid-darkness shorts, dark socks with the two white lines around the top of the sock
1908-9 - Two strips in team photos - stripes with round collar in darker colour, shorts and socks not visible (black and white??) and dark shirts with darker shoulders, probably white shorts, dark socks
1910-11 - The team are stood with arms folded in front of a goal wearing striped shirts with dark and lighter colours and 'white. shorts. The lighter colour is clearly darker than the shorts. (Yellow and black shirts??)
1912-13 - Lace up plain shirts in a much lighter shade than the main colour of the socks which have the twin white lines around the top. White shorts. (Light or mid-blue shirts?? Royal blue or black shorts??)
1920-21 - Lace up dark shirts with white sleeves from the level a shirt-sleeved shirt would end, not from the shoulder seam and a dark cuff. White shorts, dark socks with two white lines around the top of the sock. (Royal blue shirts and socks??)
1921-22 - Lighter shirts with white trim around slim stand-up collar in the manner shown on the link on the above post, possible small lace to collar, white short, socks darker, as above. (Pale or mid-blue shirts, royal blue or black shorts??)
1926-7 Collar-attached open-neck shirts. no lace in mid shade, white socks, dark socks with the two white lines on the top of the shorts (Pale or nid-blue shirts, royal blue/black socks??)

The darker socks than shirts trend continues through the photos from the 1930s.

Hope this helps.

[Nigel Bamford]

Hadrian, do you know whether, in each season, the kits were Nike or Adidas? Surely not Player Layer.

[Hadrian]

Furness Abbey Woollen Mill, I believe...

[pjdaly]

Exile, here's an historic photo of our team from our very first match. You will notice there's a player called Higgin in that line-up and when we celebrated our centenary in 2001 Brian Arrowsmith made a presentation to his grandson who was there that day and who I think was called Joseph Higgin (and he was about 90-something at the time). It seems the photo was taken at The Strawberry Ground but it's confusing because I understood our first ground was at Little Park, Roose.

[pjdaly]

Exile, here's another one, this time from 1910-11 which is when we finally moved to Holker Street. As I recall, this one was taken in front of the Holker Street end and it rained quite steadily during the match. It's a long time ago and I just seem to remember there was a lot of grumbling from the fans you see in the photo about the lack of a roof.

[Hadrian]

That's the one I speculated might have been yellow and black shirts.

[The Exile]

Many thanks for all the information.

[GTBLUE]

Exile, here's another one, this time from 1910-11 which is when we finally moved to Holker Street. As I recall, this one was taken in front of the Holker Street end and it rained quite steadily during the match. It's a long time ago and I just seem to remember there was a lot of grumbling from the fans you see in the photo about the lack of a roof.

They all had flat caps or bowler hats on PJ, what did they have to moan about

[pjdaly]

That's right, Graham. What happened to hats? Who needs a roof when you can wear a hat? They were obviously wise in those days.

[GTBLUE]

That's right, Graham. What happened to hats? Who needs a roof when you can wear a hat? They were obviously wise in those days.

And tougher than our mollycoddled protected little "treasures" these days. The wind still blew, the rain still poured.

[Cromwell58]

Nothing has changed gang of peaky blinders thugs behind the goals.