History of the rag.

The Bons original club colours.

Club colours are very revealing. Sometimes, a seemingly innocent collection of striped wool can tell more about a club than any amount of chinwags. That’s why, for example, there are very few instances of brown stripes featuring on woolly jumpers. Think skidmarks and you’ll get where I’m coming from!

The attention paid to a clubs colours is, more often than not, proportional to the level of ambition within that club. The year Stoneywood Dyce stepped out of the Grades, for instance, their players could be seen all over town and, at every opportunity, wearing their new “corporate” shell suits (as in Weegie wedding gear). I suspect that more than a few “Woodies” wore their beloved shells to bed at nights!

Many clubs in the Grades have their sights set lower. Academy don’t have any club colours that I can see, except, perhaps, for the black tracksuit bottoms, which seem to be optional. They’re one of the few, long established, clubs without a recognized uniform.

Bon Accord are a very simple club (philosophically speaking) and, for many years, club colours were thought of as being “too funcy” for the likes of us. Gradually, the red stripes started to appear, some wore one stripe, others two. Why red, especially, is lost in the mists of time but it may have been a notional nod to The Post Office from where our player pool was mostly drawn. More likely is that red was chosen because of Aberdeen F.C., fitba being the national obsession.

By the late 80s, The Bons had gotten quite good, thank you very much, and featured a lot of young(ish), keen cricketers and there was a growing demand for better kit. As an artist (both Pish and actual) of some repute (slight exaggeration), I set about not only coming up with a distinctive jumper, but also, a club badge and so was born todays’ two red stripes jumper and B and A mashed together badge monstrosity.

Soon there were long sleeves, sleeveless, shirts and caps (navy, black and even green) all with our own distinctive brand. Pride swelled our chests, heads and soon the Bons were sweeping all before them, culminating, in 1999, with the Grade 1 title, not to mention the Aberdeenshire and Turriff Cups. Coincidence? I think not!

I suspect that, when we get around to creating a Bon Accord Hall of Fame, one of the first inductees will not be a player, but a pile of creamy coloured wool and red thread. Fully deserved, mate.