Season 1881/82
original illustrations of the kits worn during the season

Possible Kit with navy knickerbockers
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Possible Kit with white knickerbockers
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The Season in brief

A wave of Welsh players, no doubt enticed by employment with the LYR, joined the club during the summer of 1881. One of the new recruits, E Thomas, was appointed club captain.

On October 22nd 1881 the 'Heathens' played West Gorton St. Mark's, the club that would eventually become Manchester City. The 'Heathens' won the game 3-0. The crowd was an estimated 3,000 - suggesting a perimeter fence and earth embankments for spectators had already been erected at North Road. The sides met again in March 1882, St. Mark's winning by the odd goal in three.

A measure of the sides progress is the 3-0 victories home and away against Manchester Arcadians, a 2-1 win at Southport and a fixture against the mighty Blackburn Olympic, whose Reserves beat Newton Heath 4-0 on their Hole-i'th'-Wall ground!

There remains a great deal of doubt concerning the team colours. In the absence of any definitive contemporary evidence, we believe it is probable that the playes wore red and white quartered shirts, the colours of the L&Y Railway.

However, modern club histories list the club colours as green and gold, although they don't offer any compelling evidence to support this claim. These colours were supposedly included in a match report from a Bolton newspaper in November 1880, but the report remains untraced.

Whatever the colour of their shirts, the Heathens would probably have continued to wear different coloured knickerbockers.