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Sunday, 23 July 2006 |
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United's playing kit is distinct: tangerine in colour, first used when the team played under the Dallas Tornado moniker in the United Soccer Association competition of 1967, which they were invitated to participate in after their first European excursion had created many headlines in the football world. After persuasion by the wife of manager Jerry Kerr, the colour would soon be adopted as the club's own in 1969 to give the club a brighter, more modern image. The new colour was paraded for the first time in a pre-season friendly against Everton in August.
When originally founded as Dundee Hibernian, they had followed the example of other clubs of similar heritage by adopting the traditionally Irish colours of green shirts and white shorts. By the time the club became Dundee United in 1923, the colours had been changed to white shirts and black shorts as they sought to distance themsleves from their Irish origins. These colours persisted in various forms up until 1969, sometimes using plain shirts, but also at various times including Celtic-style broad hoops, Queen's Park-style narrow hoops and an Airdrie-style "V" motif. The present club badge was introduced in 1993, and saw the previous Lion Rampant design rebranded in a new circular logo incorporating the club colours. Previously, the lion (presumably adopted as a symbol of Scottish patriotism) had been represented on a simpler shield design. Although this "classic" version had been utilised as the club crest on the cover of the matchday programme as early as 1956, it had never appeared on the players' strip prior to 1983. Since 1959, various other designs had been worn on the shirts, incorporating either the lion rampant or the letters DUFC, often on a circular badge.
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