Pull your socks up! Arsenal kit mishap forces delay to Chelsea clash in WSL

Chelsea’s Women’s Super League clash with Arsenal was delayed by 30 minutes because of a clash of socks.

The Gunners arrived to Stamford Bridge with the same colour white socks as the hosts, causing referee Rebecca Welch to delay the match until a solution was found.

Arsenal ended up sporting black socks from Chelsea’s megastore to enable the match to go ahead. Blue tape was used in a makeshift attempt to hide the Chelsea and Nike logos on the socks, with Arsenal’s kit manufactured by Adidas.

Ready to work our socks off. #CFCW pic.twitter.com/Gkf7r7pzNx

— Chelsea FC Women (@ChelseaFCW) March 15, 2024

As the scheduled kick-off time approached, a crowd of more than 30,000 in west London were instead treated to loud music.

Former Arsenal men’s striker Ian Wright, a keen supporter of the women’s game, posted on social media site X: “Embarrassing this. Ridiculous.”

Things did not improve for Arsenal once the match began, as a Lauren James goal and two from Sjoeke Nusken gave Chelsea a 3-0 half-time lead.

Former England international Izzy Christiansen said the delayed start would have had an impact on the players.

She said on Sky Sports: “As a player you work so hard over the years to come up with your way of preparing for a game.

“Things like this are difficult to deal with. It’s how you find a way of dealing with it internally and not let it affect your preparation.”