On the subject of Boro’s shirts, in the late forties and throughout most of the fifties Boro’s shirt design never altered although the redness of the shirt did seem to become more scarlet as time went by. The shorts were always white, and the socks were red and white hoops. However the away strip was plain white shirts with royal blue shorts which embarrassingly faded after successive laundering into a shade of sky blue.
Like all teams, Boro always played in their red kit away from home unless there was a clash of colour. Most teams with red in their home shirts played in white with navy or black shorts when visiting Ayresome Park – Arsenal, Charlton, Liverpool, Sheffield United, Stoke and Sunderland, even Villa and Blackpool. The only team who didn’t change to white I recall were Manchester United who played in blue. I think there must have been a strict rule about a team having to always play in their normal registered colours in those days. Strangely though whenever I saw Boro play at home in the FA Cup against a team whose normal shirt contained red, Boro played in white.