a red sash, would have a black banner with red writing. However, these days it is not uncommon for teams to invert the colours. History Older terminology for what is currently known as a banner is "the race", named after the caged wire tunnel separating players from patrons that the players traverse to enter the playing arena. This tunnel is known as "the race" or "the players race". Supporters would "decorate the race", hence the name. A "race" first appeared at the 1939 VFL Grand Final, with Collingwood running on to the ground through a loose tapestry of woven streamers attached to the players race. This system evolved with the loose tapestry changing to a tightly knitted tapestry. Essendon's VFL Grand Final races of 1947 & 1949 show the difference: the former is a looser tapestry, the latter tightly woven. Decorating the race continued until 1962: some clubs mounted a sign with the club emblem above the race, adding to the size and beauty of the creation. Similar to the race decoration, many supporters wove steamers through fence pickets near their seats to demonstrate their support for their team. These decorations evolved to small fabric signs hung on the fence, and later again, they evolved to larger fabric fence-mounted banners. In 1960, one of the first banners affixed to the MCG Southern Stand simply read, "Collingwood Forever". In 1961 a "Magpies" banner was affixed to the fence directly between the goal posts at an MCG finals game when Carlton Football Club player John James was presented with his Brownlow Medal. One of the first of the longer banners to traverse quite some length of the fence was at the 1962 VFL Grand Final. It read, "Come on Carlton - The Mighty Blues", behind which sat the Carlton Cheer Squad. Cheer Squads, typically, made these longer banners and during 1963 most clubs’ cheer squads had created lengthy banners for mounting to the fence for their club's games. Sometimes, during VFL finals, banners of a non-competing team may appear, often because the club may have had a reserves team competing in an earlier game on the day. An example of this is a prominently mounted Collingwood banner during the 1966 Essendon v St Kilda VFL Preliminary Final. With the introduction of fence mounted advertising hoarding, there was no room available for cheer squads banners. One of the last VFL games to have