Australian Rules Football Culture - Traditions of The Game - Clothing

Clothing

As part of their uniform, players wear shirts called guernseys. Guernseys are similar to basketball shirts, but of a more robust design, often referred to in Australia as "jumpers". In the early period of the game's development players often wore sleeveless lace-up tops which gradually disappeared between the 1960s and early 1980s. A few players choose to wear a long sleeved variation of the modern guernsey design. Players wore full length pants, before adopting shorts in the 1920s. Tight-fitting shorts were a notable fashion trend in most leagues in the 1980s and some players began to wear hamstring warmers. A brief experiment with lycra by the AFL in the State of Origin series was quickly abandoned for more traditional wear. Long socks (football socks) are compulsory and boots with moulded cleats or studs for gripping the ground are worn (screw-ins have been banned from most leagues since the 1990s). Some players wear headbands or hair ties to keep the hair out of their faces when playing, though this is rare. Players will sometimes wear arm bands around their mid biceps and triceps, typically of electrical tape, in honour. Black arm bands are typically worn in memorial to someone related to the player or their club who recently died.

Traditionally, umpires have worn white and were sometimes referred to as "white maggots" amongst supporters. AFL umpires now wear bright colours to also avoid clashes with the player guernseys and AFL goal umpires now wear t-shirts and caps, rather than the traditional white coat and broad brimmed hat (similar to what was worn by many cricket umpires) which they wore before the 1990s.

Typical supporter wear includes the team scarf and sometimes beanie (particularly in cooler climates) in the colours of the team. Team guernseys are also worn by supporters. Team flags are sometimes flown by supporters at the start of a game, when a goal is scored, and when their team wins.

Read more about this topic:  Australian Rules Football Culture, Traditions of The Game

Famous quotes containing the word clothing:

    You can’t be what you don’t see. I didn’t think about being a doctor. I didn’t even think about being a clerk in a store—I’d never seen a black clerk in a clothing store.
    Joycelyn Elders (b. 1933)

    In the very midst of the crowd about this wreck, there were men with carts busily collecting the seaweed which the storm had cast up, and conveying it beyond the reach of the tide, though they were often obliged to separate fragments of clothing from it, and they might at any moment have found a human body under it. Drown who might, they did not forget that this weed was a valuable manure. This shipwreck had not produced a visible vibration in the fabric of society.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    No change in musical style will survive unless it is accompanied by a change in clothing style. Rock is to dress up to.
    Frank Zappa (1940–1994)