THE WALLAROO TRICOLOURS

“… broad hoops of black, crimson and gold, and will, no doubt, look most imposing in the field …”

The visual identity of Wallaroo Football Club underwent a series of rapid changes during its earliest seasons due to manufacturing shortages and fabric supply issues.

AUSTRALIA’S ORIGINAL TRICOLOURS CLUB
The club began in 1870 with grey jerseys and blue caps, before in 1872 transitioning to new fashion of hooped striped jerseys, deciding on red, white, and blue. This look made Wallaroo the first football club in Australia across any code to adopt a tri-colour uniform, earning them the lifelong moniker of “The Tricolours” (inspired by les couleurs tricolores) from supporters and the local press.

Following a brief stint in black and white hoops during 1875, Wallaroo adopted its definitive and most famous kit in 1876: broad hoops of black, gold, and crimson paired with white trousers.

This design was deliberately chosen to mirror the exact colours of England’s highly influential Richmond Football Club and the nomadic I Zingari Cricket Club, signaling international prestige and a shared Rugby heritage.

These striking colours became an imposing visual hallmark that defined the club and Sydney football at Moore Park until the end of the 19th century.

The NSW colonial XV (now Waratahs) first began attaching numbers on white squares to their Rugby jerseys in 1897 in a match at the SCG against New Zealand (now All Blacks). The innovation soon moved to club football, but it was never taken up by Wallaroo FC.

“Saddle-cloth numbers belong to racehorses and those of the gambling game, not for Rugby men on Rugby fields.”

THE COLOURS OF THE WALLAROO FC were known famously throughout the Rugby-playing colonies of NSW, Queensland and New Zealand—gold, crimson and black in hooped jerseys and socks, with white trousers (‘knickerbockers’).

Owing to faded dyes, washing treatments and different manufacturer’s hues, and a Victorian era penchant at times for flourish in language, the Wallaroo FC colours were sometimes referred to as crimson red, old gold and black, or yellow, scarlet and black.

There was no dark secret behind the choice of these colours for the club, which were first used in season 1876, other than a tri-coloured jersey was still new to the colonies, elaborate and expensive.

Wallaroo FC had in its first seasons used other coloured kits, as difficulties with supply and quality caused a period of near constant change.

Notably, the club had since 1873 (and possibly 1872) been referred to as the tricolours (tri-colours) by supporters and newspapers, pre-dating its use by any other football club in Australia in any code.

“the Wallaroos sported the tricolour, which they carried so successfully last season” [Wallaroo vs King’s School (‘including some of the old boys’)]
— The Australian Town and Country Journal, 28 June 1873

1870 to 1871: Grey jersey, white trousers and blue cap.
The Wallaroo FC began in 1870, sporting grey jerseys, white pants, and blue caps.

Until 1869, these had been the colours of the Sydney Battalion Volunteer Rifle Corps, the colony’s first volunteer civilian regiment. By adopting them, the Wallaroos signalled that they were the city’s first civilian Rugby club, distinguishing themselves from both the military and the all-white uniformed Sydney University sides of the late 1860s.

Because the Battalion was not allowed to wear British red-coat colours, they wore uniforms made of “Melton Stone Grey Cloth,” while their flag and company colours were Cambridge blue (light blue).

Reflecting the Victorian era’s love for visual puns, the grey was also fortuitously a close visual mimic of a wallaroo’s fur.

As was custom in this era before striped and multi-coloured jerseys, some ‘old boys’ would decorate onto the front of their jersey the insignia of their school or college team, including the skull and crossbones in the case of the ‘School House’ at Rugby School.

The players’ team caps were also probably reversible caps, with the club’s blue on one side and another colour on the other, likely red or pink or gold. This facilitated dividing the club members into two teams for in-house games.

1872 to 1874: Red, white and blue striped jerseys and caps.
Unable to obtain the grey jersey for 1872, the club instead settled on a new three-coloured hooped jersey, a design never before seen in the Australian colonies in any football code.

The chosen red, white and blue colours were those of Rugby School’s striped jerseys, first introduced in 1870 for its matches against outside teams and clubs.

“No suitable grey jerseys being procurable, it was decided to alter the 8th by-law [club’s colours] by substituting red white and blue striped jerseys and caps for the coming season.”
— Wallaroo FC meeting 14 May 1872.

“Ladies show up well, most of them sporting the Goulburn blue and white, but I notice some with the Wallaroo tricolor, and the visitors are not a little proud of the wearers.”
— The Sydney Mail, 25 July 1874 (Wallaroo visit Goulburn)

“Most of the cries of encouragement being accorded to the “Unis,” but as a set off against this we noticed that the ladies almost without exception wore the red, white, and blue of the redoubtable Wallaroos.”
— The Sydney Mail, 1 August 1874

1875: Black and white hooped jerseys, white trousers.
The club was again forced into a change, although this one lasted just the 1875 season.

“Your committee regret that they could not procure the colours which have now become so well known in the Football field, but they trust that the black and white will be able to sustain with honour the name that the red white and blue has made for the Club.”
— Wallaroo FC meeting 22 April 1875

1875: Sydney University changes from all white kit to blue and gold hoops jersey.

1876 & thereafter: Broad hoops of black, crimson and gold jersey, white trousers.
Another forced change, but the resultant choice of design in quick time became the Wallaroo FC‘s traditional and famous jersey.

“Owing to the uniform worn last year not proving suitable, your committee have selected new colours, deeming this course most advisable, as the new uniform can always be readily obtained from England when the present supply runs short, it being identical with that worn by one of the leading English clubs.”
— Wallaroo FC meeting 24 April 1876

“The new uniform was exhibited at the meeting, and is identical with the well-known colours of the Richmond Football and I Zingari Cricket Clubs in England— viz., broad hoops of black, crimson and gold, and will, no doubt, look most imposing in the field.”
— The Sydney Mail, 6 May 1876

“The new uniform, black, gold, and crimson hoops, was approved of by the meeting, and generally admired”
— The Australian Town and Country Journal, 27 May 1876

“…amongst the tricolored hoops…”
— The Sydney Mail, 6 October 1877

In the mid 1870s the Richmond FC was one of the most influential football clubs in the world and adherents to Rugby. Aligning their club colours was a statement of ‘prestige’ for the Wallaroo FC.

The mention above to I Zingari (the famous nomadic cricket club) is worth expanding to note that they referenced using Black, Red, and Gold to symbolise “Out of darkness, through fire, into light.”

The new colour palette coincidentally was noticed to mirror both the plumage of the red-tailed black cockatoo (Calyptorhynchus banksii banksii)—a bird native to the Sydney basin before its local disappearance around the same time as the founding of Wallaroo FC—and the striking flowers of the popular Hairpin Banksia (Banksia spinulosa), a native shrub highly characteristic of the Sydney landscape.

The Wallaroo FC continued through the 1880s-90s to be called ‘the tricolours’, as well as ‘the marsupials’.

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“The committee said, in conclusion, that they felt sure from present prospects and the promising material at disposal, that it was quite probable that the well-known and time-honored colors — “black, crimson, and gold”— would once again be heralded as those of the premier club.”
— WFC annual meeting, 18 March 1898 (The Daily Telegraph, 19 March 1898)

Note 1: The jerseys of Rugby School for its foreign (outside) games was red, white and blue 1870 to 1876, whereupon it was changed to white jerseys with the School crest. Per Football Records of Rugby School 1823-1929: Collected for the Old Rugbeian Society by a Sub-Committee (published 1930).

Note 2: While the Wallaroos in 1872 became the first football club in Australia to wear a tricolour jersey, in 1873 the Melbourne-based club St Kilda FC (now an AFL club) adopted three colours—red, black and white—at its founding. However, St Kilda did not implement a tricolour jersey (guernsey) until 1886, relying instead on a white neckerchief or yoke to supplement its red and black shirts.