Kits

Today Manchester United may be a global brand and one of the most successful clubs on the planet, but in the late nineteenth century they were a very unremarkable club indeed. Formed by railway workers, they were originally known as Newton Heath LYR (the suffix stood for Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway) and purchased a uniform strip of cashmere jerseys in green and gold, the colours of the parent company. The club's reputation grew and in 1889, the Heathens had joined the Football Alliance, formed as rivals to the Football League. Recent research by Paul Nagel indicates that the club switched from green and gold to red and white shirts sometime around 1888 or 1889 (the old jerseys were retained as change colours) while Brian Landamore has found a reference in the Manchester and District rule book from the 1887-88 season that gives their colours as red and white. In April 1892, the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway Co repossessed the ground they rented to the club with a view to developing it to benefit all their employees. Although Newton Heath were allowed to continue to use North Rd for the following season (at a considerably increased rent), they dropped the "LYR" suffix to emphasise their separate identity.