I have little doubt that there are at least a few of you wondering what it is about the picture above — depicting what appears to be a normal pre-match handshake — so special that I would choose to make it my “Pic of the Week.” And assuming you don’t follow the Football League Championship, it’s highly likely that you’ll find nothing about this picture remarkable at all. So you’re probably waiting for an explanation, right?
The keen-eyed observer might guess that this was taken during Sheffield Wednesday’s latest intra-squad scrimmage, since the team coming from the right is wearing the club’s current home kit and the team standing is wearing last year’s away strip. However, an even keener-eyed observer would also be quick to realize that Shaun Derry (pictured second from right) does NOT play for the Owls, nor do Shane Lowry or Mark Beevers who are flanking him. In fact, all three of those guys currently ply their trade for fellow Championship side Millwall. So why the hell are those Lions players wearing Wednesday’s away kit from last year?
In what quickly became the punchline of the weekend, the reason why Millwall didn’t quite look themselves this past weekend was because their kit man accidentally had their home kits sent to the Sheffield Wednesday’s Hillsborough Stadium ahead of their match on Saturday. And since the Lion’s home kit clashes with that of the Owls’, the only tenable solution was for the home side to lend their old aways to the visitors. Why not the current aways? Maybe they were dirty, or maybe they didn’t want to jinx them by letting an opponent where them… who knows really.
Oddly enough, Millwall scored a very fitting own goal while wearing their hosts’ threads. Luckily for the visitors, they were able to produce their own kits by half time and were even able to manage a late equalizer to see out the match 1-1. Even more lucky, however, is Millwall’s kit man… who somehow still finds himself in a job.