WHO was responsible for whingeing long and loud enough about colour clashes to prompt the AFL and its clubs to go down the path of alternative strips?

I'd like a perhaps not-so-quiet word in their ear. And maybe supervise an eyesight test for them.

Seriously, talk about swatting a fly with a sledgehammer, and smashing the furniture in doing so.

It was driven home again on Friday night, before the North Melbourne-Collingwood game, when the Telstra Dome scoreboard played a quarter of the 1977 grand final replay between the Kangaroos and Magpies.

That, and the tie that preceded it, are two of league football's most memorable games, full of incident. The Roos wore royal blue and white stripes and blue shorts. The Pies black and white stripes and white shorts. And what do you know? Players, coaches, callers and fans alike somehow all managed to tell the difference.

They did so happily for a good 100 years without any incident, save a rare quip from a player about shooting a handball off to an opponent in the belief he was a teammate.

Now there's an almost weekly circus about who wears what against whom. Most vociferously when that other team that wears vertical stripes including white plays Collingwood.

The regulations are a mess. The alternate strips don't just come out for the away team, but, as in North's case on Friday, the home side. Frequently, the "clash" jumpers seem to confuse more than the first-choice strip would.

North Melbourne's so-called "statement" of wearing its traditional strip for Friday's warm-up seemed a little limp-wristed. But understandable when you consider an act of defiance for the game proper could have cost it a fine of up to $100,000, according to chief executive Eugene Arocca. That's simply a ridiculous penalty.

Here's an idea. Scrap the alternate strips altogether. Make sure the home team wears its coloured or black shorts and the away team white. Change the socks if you really must. And let's trust our eyes to continue to distinguish the differences that seemed to be apparent to everyone for a century or so.