Chequered Flags – Flown with Pride

Chequered flags in club colours

A chequered flag in two colours is the oldest way of showing a football or rugby club’s colours without a crest, and these are the flags the supporters’ coaches, pub walls and terrace ends have carried for a century. Twenty-two colour pairings are stocked, each a bold check of large squares that reads from the other end of a ground: black and white for Newcastle, Grimsby, Notts County and the Juventus crowd, red and white for Sunderland, Southampton, Sheffield United, Stoke, Exeter and Croatia, claret and sky blue for West Ham, Villa, Burnley and Scunthorpe, blue and white for Brighton, Sheffield Wednesday, Reading, Huddersfield, Rangers, Kilmarnock and Bath, green and white for Celtic, Plymouth, Hibs and Yeovil, blue and yellow for Leeds away, Mansfield, Shrewsbury and Oxford, tangerine and white for Blackpool and Dundee United, black and gold for Wolves and Hull, red and black for Bournemouth and Milan, green and yellow for Norwich, sky blue and white for Coventry, City and Lazio, maroon and white for Hearts, Northampton and Galatasaray, purple and yellow for the Wasps crowd, and red and royal blue, red and green, red and yellow, blue and black, black and orange, black and yellow, navy and white, sky and navy and royal and navy for everybody else. None of them carries a badge or a name, which is what makes them legal to fly anywhere and useful for school sports days, scout troops, go-kart tracks, village fetes, gala days and anyone whose team plays in two colours.

Why a check and not stripes?

A check shows both colours equally from any angle, whereas stripes thin out as the flag folds in the wind; it also has no top or bottom, so it hangs correctly from a window, a balcony or a coach rail without anyone arguing about which way up it goes. The check has been the supporters’ pattern since the pre-war days of rattles and rosettes, and it is the same pattern the racing world uses for the finish line, which is why the black and white check doubles as a motorsport and go-kart flag; the dedicated race-day flags and the full racing range have their own page, and club-specific colour flags are under supporters’ club colours.

Sizes, grades and fittings

Every colour pairing comes as a 5ft x 3ft Flagtex woven-polyester flag with eyelets, or sleeved to slide over a pole, and the big sellers go further: the black and white, red and white and blue and white checks are stocked in 20x12in, 3ft x 2ft, 5ft x 3ft and 8ft x 5ft with a DuraFlag outdoor grade, and the claret and sky, green and white, blue and yellow and green and yellow checks in 20x12in, 3ft x 2ft and 5ft x 3ft with DuraFlag, clips and rope-and-toggle options. 5ft x 3ft is the size for a pub wall, a coach window or a garden pole on match day; 8ft x 5ft covers a balcony or a clubhouse end; 20x12in is the car and hand-pole size.

Check bunting

Black and white check bunting is stocked in 3m, 5m, 9m, 12m and 20m rectangle lengths, a triangle cut for a fete and a giant 18.25m length with oversized pennants for a clubhouse or a high street, and blue and white, green and white and red and black check bunting come in 3m and 9m. A 9m length runs the length of a bar for a cup final; the giant length goes across the road outside the ground. Plain single-colour bunting to mix in with it is under plain-colour bunting.

Hand flags, windsocks and table flags

Black and white, red and white, blue and white, green and white and blue and yellow check hand flags on wooden sticks in 9x6in and 18x12in are the ones for the junior section, the open-top bus and the finish line at sports day, sold singly and in packs. The black and white, red and white, blue and white, blue and yellow and claret and sky windsocks fly from a garden pole, a caravan or a kart track, and the black and white check table flag with base is the 6x4in desk flag for a bar, a trophy cabinet or a race-day table.

Chequered flag FAQs

Popular in this collection

• Black and White Check Flag (20x12in to 8x5ft)from £6.99
• Red and White Check Flagfrom £6.99
• Claret and Sky Blue Check Flagfrom £7.99
• Blue and White Check Flagfrom £6.99
• Green and White Check Flagfrom £6.99
• Black and White Check Bunting (3m to 20m)from £9.98
• Black and White Check Hand Flagsfrom £5.99