Can anyone say for sure why we changed from the broad Red band to the Red Vee? I have my own thougjts but would like to hear others.
Can anyone say for sure why we changed from the broad Red band to the Red Vee? I have my own thougjts but would like to hear others.
I don't know but I'm really annoyed about it. I've said for years we need to bin off the red vee for a while and a classic white shirt with a red band would be the perfect place to go initially. The obsession with the vee is weird frankly, given it's not been part of our heritage throughout. Why we've never gone back to the band in the Super League era is beyond me. I'm all for a Meninga era throwback kit for a year or three.
Then, after the PR the controversy about removing the vee would create, they can bring it back in a fanfare with a properly designed shirt and make billions.
Can't stop the spirits when they need you.
This life is more than just a read through.
I always thought we'd nicked it from St George Dragons in Australia to try and emulate their incredible success in the 50s and 60s.
I am angry, I am ill and I'm as ugly as sin ...
I always loved the Red Band what I was brought up on in the Boy's Pen at Knowsley Road, I just felt at the time the V was nothing more that following the NRL as shirts over there were so popular & difficult to purchase here.
But what annoys me more is the silly badge with the Saint figure of a outdated TV programme, what was wrong with the St Helens Borough emblem, and Ex Terra Lucem, which was restored and used again in 2013! the figure used is as bad as the amount of advertising these days on the back of shorts! it is a Joke!
My take on it is Bob Collins the bookmaker( was he on the board?) used to finance the players by giving extra fivers/tenners on top of winning money for vital games. His racing colours were Red Vee on white shirt, could have it come from there?
I dunno, I think I've changed a lot over the 90 years. I think I've mellowed from the days I used to threaten to assassinate Paul Wellens and predict we'd never win a game again during the glory-years.
And as for my actual age, I'm actually not that old. People have played in Super League who were older than me.
Hull KR have a white jersey with a red band currently, they even had a similar one to ours in the 60s:
https://i2-prod.hulldailymail.co.uk/...0_Maloney2.jpg
Jack Reacher is right and Hull KR did play in white with a red band as Saints did.
As mentioned in a couple of posts above, the first time was the 1961 cup final against Wigan.
Both teams wanted to wear their normal Red & White colours. I don't know who came up with th e idea but Saints were the Red V on a White shirt and Wigan the other day round.
With hindsight it would have been a brilliant marketing idea, it was the largest Wembley attendance at the time, but fans couldn't buy replica shirts in those days.
In that era there was no such thing as an "Away" or a " Home" kit. If there was a clash of colours the home team wore their "change" strip, Saints was a pretty drab plain blue shirt.
Visiting team would often have a white and or red in their shirts so for most home games Saints seemed to wear the plain blue.
For some reason at the beginning of the 61/62 season we had a brief spell of wearing black with a White V as our main colours. It wasn't very popular and we had a bad start to the season which was obviously the shirt's fault so it was scrapped.
I was only 11 years old at the time so you'll have to forgive me if any of that is inaccurate ;-)
Again, as already mentioned, when Saints and Wigan clashed at Wembley again in 1966 we were the Red V again and it's stayed since then.
Just a side note, when the great Dick Huddart was leaving Saints to go to Australia in about 1964, through a friend of a friend my dad managed to get me one of his old shirts which at the time was the Red Band one.
At the time it was a treasured possession together with lots of programmes and scrap books from the early 60's.
But time moved on, I grew up and went to work down south and mum and dad moved house so as part of a clear out all my old Saints stuff including the shirt was given away to a "sale of work" never to be seen again (memorabilia wasn't a big thing at the time) :-/ :-)
Yes. I seem to recall that the red band on Saints' jersey was marginally broader, or marginally narrower, than the Hull KR band. My brother had one of these shirts, and his pals around our home in Charles Street used to rile him by saying he was wearing a Hull KR jersey. To all intents and purposes they looked almost identical.