Two of the most famously successful football teams in the UK; Liverpool and Manchester United both regularly play in red promotional clothing. This might seem like an irrelevant fact but there may be more to the colour of sporty promotional clothing than you think.

A recent study by esteemed British anthropologists revealed that wearing red promotional clothing as a sports kit can give both individual players and entire teams a psychological, and even a physical advantage over their opponents!

Of course the colour of your clothing is unlikely to help you if you have two left feet and severe astigmatism, but in situations where two teams are evenly matched, red promotional clothing can often help a team to victory!

The study found that where two teams or players were on an even keel in terms of ability, the player or team dressed in red had the advantage so often that it could not simply be down to chance. In cases where one opponent was slightly inferior to the other, red promotional clothing seemed to actually address the balance, allowing the less-good, red player to win!

The colour red has always been associated with intensity, anger, aggression, all qualities associated with masculinity and testosterone, and therefore keener instincts, higher speed and more powerful play, but until now there was no real proof that wearing red promotional clothing had any true effect when it came to performance in sport.

Despite the measurable effect that red clothing has on the testosterone levels of male sports players, wearing bright red clothing also gave female sports players a decided advantage. This suggests that although red promotional clothing can have a physical effect on play, it is the psychology of wearing red-coloured promotional clothing that really gives sportsmen and women the advantage.

A red shirt might make you feel more powerful, but its effect on your opponents is probably the most important thing about the whole phenomenon. Red signals dominance and danger, which can measurably alter how confident and successful a player feels. As any sportsperson will tell you, after a certain level sport is all about mind-set. If you believe your opponent will beat you, or is more confident and aggressive that you, you are on the back foot already.

This is something that seems to be basic to our very deepest instincts. Even primates are shown to have basic reactions to the colour red. Male primates with red colouring have an sexual advantage and attract more females than less red-coloured males.

This research could have sports retailers dashing to stock up on red sportswear! Even if you don't believe the hype about red promotional clothing, the sports kit your team wears definitely does have a real effect on performance, never mind the colour.