Manchester United famously did it at half-time during a match in 1996.

Sir Alex Ferguson's side ditched their infamous grey Umbro kit and re-emerged with a blue and white striped number after trailing 3-0 to Southampton at the Dell.

It remains one of the most unusual moments in the history of the English Premier League.

They lost the match 3-1 in the end.

Ferguson said afterwards: "The players don't like the grey strip. The players couldn't pick each other out. They said it was difficult to see their teammates at a distance when they lifted their heads. It was nothing to do with superstition."

There have been all sorts of excuses offered up for Celtic's first Scottish Premiership defeat in 364 days to St Mirren in Paisley on Sunday.

One of the more outlandish and hyperbolic suggestions emerging from the weekend was that Celtic's silver/grey third choice kit actually clashed with St Mirren's. Both strips featured black shorts for starters.

Did the Celtic players really struggle to pick each other out wearing the grey kit just as the Manchester United team did in 1996?

That logic on the face of it is an absolute stretch even for the most optimistic of the Hoops faithful.

Celtic boss Ange Postecoglou wasn't even asked his opinion on the grey strip by the assembled members of the media.

As the Aussie will rightfully tell you - he's more of a jumper kind of guy anyway.

Kits are disclosed and confirmed to the SPFL at the start of every season and the referee would have been well within his rights to flag up any issues concerning clashes before kick-off.

The official Don Robertson, as well as broadcaster Sky Sports, were clearly happy that there was no colour clash and therefore nothing needed to be done.

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So Celtic stopped well short of doing a Manchester United and binning the grey kit for the traditional green and white hoops at the interval.

Bearing in mind it did come at a cost for Ferguson's side all those years ago.

The Old Trafford outfit were fined £10,000 by the Football Association (FA) for breaching protocol relating to kits. The bold Sir Alex described it as the "best £10,000 he has ever spent."

Celtic have now played one and lost one with their grey third choice kit. Whatever happened in Paisley certainly had nothing to do with Celtic's grey kit. Nothing of the sort.

They were just beaten by a well-drilled, well-disciplined and well-organised St Mirren side who took their chances to land a knockout blow on the Premiership champions when they came along.

Celtic were never at the races in Paisley from start to finish.

As Hoops goalkeeper Joe Hart said: "It’s not as if we thought we could just turn up for the St Mirren game and play half-arsed and win the game. We never thought that. We never think that. You can see that from our attitude. We just weren’t quite at the races with everything that we wanted to be and St Mirren played a good game."

That's a neat summation of how things panned out.

Maybe there is a salutary lesson for Celtic to be learned from Manchester United's grey kit escapades over a quarter of a century ago.

The Red Devils were unbeaten in their 12 games prior to sporting the grey strip against the Saints.

The Old Trafford outfit had yet to win a single game when they wore the same kit on the previous four occasions.

Manchester United took the decisive action to do away with the grey kit after a loss to the Saints. 

The visitors had not lost in their 38 previous league games but were surprisingly off-colour in Paisley.

26 years on from Manchester United's debacle at the Dell... it was Celtic's turn to 'Fade to Grey'.

This piece is an extract from today’s Celtic Digest newsletter, which is emailed out at 4pm every weekday with a round-up of the day's top stories and exclusive analysis from The Celtic Way team.

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