What to wear to Football Match
 

We purchased hospitality tickets to the museum section of the Chelsea hosting Newcastle game and I am confused by the “smart casual” dress code requirement. Here is the relevant section from the Chelsea website:

What are “smart jeans”? My fiancé is planning on wearing dark jeans and his Chelsea football jersey. I don’t think that my jeans would qualify as they have designer “rips” in them.

If I go with a pale blue dress, can I wear black tights and black flats? Would that be considered wearing Newcastle colors? As the match will be freezing, I do have a dark blue coat - will that be ok?

If I can’t wear the pale blue, would a grey green or burgundy dress be ok?

Which bit of "no football shirts" confuses you?! Your fiance cannot wear a football shirt. This is for his own safety as the hospitality areas are not segregated.

This is the standard dress code in hospitality areas for Premier League football matches. Arsenal, where I got quite often on hospitality tickets, has identical rules.

In reality, in my experience ..... females can get away with wearing a home team football shirt. Men cannot. That's life (or at least at Arsenal). I doubt either sex would get in with an away shirt.

Jeans with rips are not acceptable.

Don't wear a dress, it will be very cold and probably windy! It does not count as Newcastle colours though! Only something clearly marked with the Newcastle name or crest would cause problems. If you wore a jumper with a zebra on it, for example, that would be OK :-)

They're in the "Museum" section where there is no ban on football shirts, only on away club colours and offensive T-shirts (does that mean Arsenal? asking for a friend).
I would still bring a jumper to cover up the Chelsea shirt if required.

Perhaps it is you that it confused??

OP stated they will be in The Museum section and the quote for the website clearly states that it is OK to wear football shirts (though not the away teams) in that section.


OP your dress, black tights and coat will be OK.

- deleted, no need to pile on :)

Thank you everyone for your replies!

I edited the post to clarify that it is a Chelsea home game. Since I don’t want to buy more jeans, I will just wear the casual dress and tights that I had planned. I of course will be bundled up as it is predicted to be around 8 degrees and I will be freezing! We will make sure the my fiancé brings a sweater/jumper in addition to his coat in case they have a problem with his jersey.

Just FYI, no one here calls it a jersey - it's a football shirt. :)

I beg to differ.

Hmm interesting - if I say it to myself in a Scottish accent it sounds more current. :) My perception at least in the south of England is that it would be very rare nowadays to hear anyone under about 50 refer to a football shirt as a jersey.

I'm 47 and is a shirt!

Probably a combination of region and jersey is a little older for sure.

Bet if you watch footy over the weekend you'll hear at least one pundit talk about "playing for the jersey" - though it probably will be a Scottish one!

It's known as a 'fitba tap' in Glasgow.

I had never ever owned one until I came here and was gifted a San Lorenzo one.....yes, I'd never heard of them either.

I was pretty confused at what fitba tap meant until I did a Glaswegian accent in my head....!

Just be yourself, without any expression of team support. I am more concern on the cold weather rather than the dress code.

Also - it can be a bad idea to wear a dress to Stamford Bridge.