I think you are perhaps being a little generous there. This isn't grass roots, it is senior level football and if the home team didn't have their away kit with them at the ground they certainly would have had it at the training ground. This might have been a problem in previous seasons when they were playing hundreds of miles from Truro, but not now that they play and train in Truro. The officials have obviously just not realised from the team sheets that red and orange might be a problem, and that the shorts and socks were the same colour.
I suspect the penny just didn't drop when they saw the team sheets, and the first time they realised there was a problem was in the tunnel. Otherwise why did Dorking only turn their shirts inside out after the game had started, surely that would have been sorted out before the game if it had been known there was a kit clash?
I have a completely different view. There is no way that if there was a different kit available they wouldn’t have delayed kick off to use it. Also, the first thing any Referee does when they get the team sheets is to look for potential colour clash - so if they both said red and red or orange & orange or even red & orange alarm bells would have been ringing. Let’s assume for whatever reason no other change of kit could be obtained. The dilemma the Referee had was weather to allow the game to start, whether to allow the teams to play in predominantly the same coloured kit but with some subtle differences to the chest & sleeve area or to have one team turn their shirts inside out (which fortunately for at least one team, was a different colour rather than them usually being the same). So if the latter to start, then at any misconduct or mass confrontations identification of the offender(s) is likely to be challenging. On the other hand for the former if players can’t tell who they are passing to then this is also a problem, as it would be for supporters. So, which is the most important - kit or identifying potential offenders.
That is true. They have been playing in white as the white tigers until this season where they have gone back to their traditional red and black.
Not yet it doesnt. There are plans for it to be a complex but currently it is just the stadium. Naturally, that was prioritised.
I've been involved in plenty of senior games where the referee pays scant regard to the colours, as long as they aren't written down the same they'd assumed it would be OK. I remember one game where the team sheets said home team were red & white stripes and away team blue and white stripes, but unfortunately both had all white backs and sleeves and we only realised in the tunnel. I've also seen a referee assume blue and purple would be OK, and it most certainly wasn't. Plus red and orange could be OK, if the red was a darker shade and the orange brighter like Luton's kit you'd probably get away with it, but if I saw red and orange I'd at a minimum be asking both shirts to be brought in to have a look at them side by side..
That’s a fair and reasonable question, and since I don’t know all the circumstances as to what went behind the scenes I politely wave my right to provide my thoughts. However, very importantly, the game was correctly played to a finish.
