History of The Sky Blue Jersey
New South Wales state sporting colour is famous throughout Australia. Until 1885 the NSW side wore 'heather green' which was the official colour of the Southern Rugby Football Union (later NSWRU). The jersey also included a white southern cross across the chest.
By 1887 the NSW team was wearing red scarlet jerseys which they appear to have used up to 1891. The choice of red is seemingly based upon following the colour of the Wales jersey, as the badge included a dragon symbol.
In 1892 the NSWRU decided to wear jerseys of 'Cambridge blue' - though the source of the inspiration for colour choice was not recorded. The likely reason was that the Queensland, or Northern Union had adopted a dark blue jersey similar to the dark blue of Oxford University, and so a natural opposition strip was that of Cambridge's light blue. They may also have followed the lead of the NSW cricket team who wore light blue shirts (all white clothing was not yet custom in cricket).
By 1897 the playing strip was specified as: "navy-blue pants, light-blue jersey" and the colour scheme has remained in place ever since.
Read more about this topic: Rugby Union In New South Wales
Famous quotes containing the words history of, history, sky, blue and/or jersey:
“In the history of the human mind, these glowing and ruddy fables precede the noonday thoughts of men, as Aurora the sun’s rays. The matutine intellect of the poet, keeping in advance of the glare of philosophy, always dwells in this auroral atmosphere.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“No one is ahead of his time, it is only that the particular variety of creating his time is the one that his contemporaries who are also creating their own time refuse to accept.... For a very long time everybody refuses and then almost without a pause almost everybody accepts. In the history of the refused in the arts and literature the rapidity of the change is always startling.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“The sky it seems would pour down stinking pitch,
But that the sea, mounting to the welkin’s cheek,
Dashes the fire out.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“The Reverend Samuel Peters ... exaggerated the Blue Laws, but they did include “Capital Lawes” providing a death penalty for any child over sixteen who was found guilty of cursing or striking his natural parents; a death penalty for an incorrigible son; a law forbidding smoking except in a room in a private house; another law declaring smoking illegal except on a journey five miles away from home,...”
—Administration for the State of Con, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Ladies and gentlemen, I have a grave announcement to make. Incredible as it may seem, strange beings who landed in New Jersey tonight are the vanguard of an invading army from Mars.”
—Orson Welles (1915–1984)