Luke O’Sullivan waves to the crowd after reaching his 50th game, marked in Carlton’s infamous M&Ms guernsey.

Alternative strips have been a thing in AFL football for a good 30 years now. And yet still we regularly find ourselves scratching heads about why a team has chosen this or that outfit to wear against a particular opposition.

Last Saturday, as the competition “gathered round” in Adelaide, Fremantle, nominally the home team against Carlton, opted to wear what it calls its “stealth” jumper.

Predominantly dark, it meant the Blues had to revert to their all-white “away” strip. Given that the Dockers have had an all-white away strip for a long time now (and wore it in the 2013 grand final), it effectively left Fremantle looking like Carlton, and the Blues looking like the Dockers.

Which got us here at the “Remember When” column thinking about other “unusual” strips. And with that came the sudden realisation that this week is an important football date for those inclined to obsess over AFL club uniforms.

For Carlton’s clash on Saturday against Adelaide is the 27th anniversary, to the day, of what has become known as the “M&Ms Match”, the afternoon the Blues traded in their navy blue for a light blue reminiscent of South Australian club Sturt, a marketing gambit which fetched the club a cool $250,000.

The Blues this Saturday are up against the same opponent, the Crows, but at a venue in Marvel Stadium which hadn’t even been built, and indeed had only just become a thought bubble, when the historic occasion took place at Princes Park (by then known commercially as Optus Oval).

Optus was in its fifth year of naming rights at the ground by then, but the creep of commercial deals was still a contentious one with the footy fan base. And if traditionalist Carlton fans didn’t like the ground name change, they’d be even less thrilled by this one-off promotion to launch the new blue-coloured M&M.

The game itself proved to be unremarkable enough. Carlton was in trouble early, trailing by 17 points at half-time, but the Blues held Adelaide goalless whilst adding five goals in the third term, then held the Crows at bay to win by 28 points.

Aaron Hamill and Anthony Koutoufides each kicked three goals for the Blues and Craig Bradley cleaned up with 33 possessions, while for Adelaide, Nigel Smart and Barry Standfield each kicked three goals.

But the “M&Ms Match” is probably most remembered for the unique circumstances of several Carlton milestones that Sunday afternoon, including the unveiling of the newly-built “Legends Stand” at the Lygon Street end of the ground.

Luke O’Sullivan was a much-loved Carlton cult figure, by then in his 10th season with the Blues but still with only 49 senior games to his name, held back by repeated injuries and the Blues’ impressive depth of talent.

Finally, though, the barrel-chested, bullocking half-forward with the distinctive sideburns would reach the 50-game mark. Somehow, the fact that he’d mark the occasion wearing this bizarre get-up was in keeping with his image, as was his half-ironic salute to the crowd as he was chaired off by teammates.

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Mick McGuane, meanwhile, was a much-loved Magpie, who after 152 games with Collingwood, headed to the Pies’ arch-rival in 1997 for a fresh start. But dogged by calf injuries, this would be his third and final game for Carlton.

Whilst McGuane’s time with the Blues is a mere asterisk on a terrific CV, there’s good trivia money to be made asking in which jumper the skillful ruck-rover played his last-ever game of AFL football.

Finally, there’s the story of Andrew Balkwill, who has own little slice of football history. Not because this game for Carlton against Adelaide would be his one and only AFL senior appearance. But because he remains the only man to play for the “navy blue” without ever actually wearing it.

That, though, is a tag the good-natured Balkwill has always worn with good humour and justified pride in being able to have played the game at the highest level at all. “It was all very, very exciting. It’s every young fellow’s dream of playing AFL,” Balkwill recalled for Carlton’s website back in 2009.

“There was obviously a fair bit of marketing and hype around the fact that M&Ms were releasing the blue M&M to their range. Much was made of the guernsey and the sacrilege; you know, ‘What are they doing to the Navy Blue?’ But we all just went about our business as normal in preparation for the game.”

Balkwill came off the interchange bench when McGuane went off injured, but only had time to pick up two disposals. And even those might have slipped under the guard. “I certainly remember comments from friends and family in the crowd who found it difficult to find me because the numbers didn’t stand out as they normally would.”

Balkwill subsequently ran into injury problems and was delisted at the end of 1998, but even then remained determinedly upbeat.

Perhaps remarkably so given the lasting mementos of his taste of the big time aren’t the famous jumper and strip of one of football’s best-known clubs, but instead resemble a bit of confectionary.

“For me, it was a fantastic experience, and to tell you the truth I’m more famous for playing in that one solitary game for Carlton than I would have had I played 20 or 30,” Balkwill chuckled.

Hey Carlton fans, wouldn’t it be great if your team wheeled out the old M&Ms strip this weekend to honour the memory? Yeah OK, just kidding.

This article first appeared at ESPN.