Grey is going away.

That was perhaps the most popular news to stem from Essendon's annual general meeting on Monday night, at which chief executive Xavier Campbell announced the club was reverting to a red and black clash jumper.



The Bombers have worn a much-maligned grey "heritage" jumper when playing away against Richmond, St Kilda, Fremantle, Port Adelaide and Melbourne since 2012. The strip was introduced as part of the AFL's push to have all games feature dark colours against light colours.



Responding to a question from the floor about what changes would be made to the jumper, Campbell said the club's primary colours of red and black would soon be seen even when the Dons played away to sides with similar colours.

Campbell explained what had led to the use of the grey jumper. "Probably around 2010 we were given pretty strict parameters from the AFL with which to work within, and given an ultimatum - we needed to establish a clash guernsey," Campbell said.



"We've run with a light base. At that point in time the AFL classified both red and black as dark colours, so we did go and have to establish a third colour. We used the grey from the Bomber logo as the base colour. What we did around that guernsey was establish a heritage element, because there was frustration around the football club from having to do that."



He explained that with Mark Evans replacing Adrian Anderson as AFL football operations manager in 2013, there was greater understanding of the club's preference to maintain their traditional colours. "To be brutally honest, Mark Evans has had a greater ear for understanding of our position, around what our preference is which is establishing a red and black base to our guernsey.

"Without saying too much more, we've got an exciting announcement to make early next year where we will be reverting back to a red and black guernsey as an away strip."

Bombers Patrick Ambrose, Jobe Watson and Michael Hibberd celebrate the win over St Kilda this year wearing the grey jumper. Credit:Getty Images

The grey jumper paid tribute to past greats of the club, whose names were emblazoned on the uniform.