On, You Green & Gold (and Sometimes Blue) To Glory

Packer fans, you know the words:

Hail, hail, the gang's all here to yell for you,
And keep you going in your winning ways,
Hail, hail, the gang's all here to tell you too,
That win or lose, we'll always sing your praises Packers;

Go, you Packers, go and get 'em,
Go, you fighting fools upset 'em,
Smash their line with all your might,
A touchdown, Packers,
Fight, Fight, Fight, Fight!
On, you Blue and Gold, to glory,
Win this game the same old story,
Fight, you Packers,
Fight, and bring the bacon home to Old Green Bay.

Nowadays, we're more accustomed to "On, you Green and Gold, to glory," but for decades the Packers were strongly associated with the color blue. The "Big Blue Bays" and all that.

Several seasons into the Lombardi era, well after Saint Vince re-designed the uniforms featuring the green and gold color scheme so familiar today, navy was still listed as a team color in the press guides. This was largely because the team was still wearing hand-me-down sideline gear from previous regimes.

These screencaps from the 1962 World Championship Game at Yankee Stadium, where the Packers defeated the New York Football Giants 16-7 to claim their eighth (and Lombardi's second) title.

As you can see, the Packers are still wearing their blue 1950s-era sideline gear, including the capes.

I'd love to know when those capes made their first appearance - the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton dates them to the Hutson era, but I'm not sure.

There's something even better than the capes in those screencaps: the coaches are wearing a familiar sideline jacket.

Mystery solved. Mitchell & Ness got it right.

Beautiful stuff. I also like the other blue jackets. They look like the green pullovers worn later in the 1960s.

Interesting mix of vertically and radially arched team names on the back.

I don't usually trust old photos for color reference, but there's little doubt that the jackets are actually blue, when worn over green windbreakers:

I love a good mystery, especially one that has been solved.

Thanks to Robert for the screencaps.