It has already been remarked that Floriana's official colours at the beginning of the century were green and red quartered shirts with black shorts. Later on these were replaced with green and white striped shirts and white shorts. Tradition has it that these colours were adopted after a game played at the Floriana Parade Ground against the Royal Irish Fusiliers. This regiment of the British army was stationed at Floriana. The two sides played four times against each other in 1904-05. The Fusiliers won the first two games while the third one ended all square. A fourth game was organised between the two sides and this time Floriana won 2-1. As a symbol of friendship, the players swapped their shirts. From that moment onwards, Floriana Football Club adopted the colours of the Royal Irish Fusiliers, i.e. green and white stripes and white shorts. It must be noted that the Florianites are still called 'Ta' l-Irish' meaning 'The Irish'. Moreover a hymn was composed in the early 1920's which went something like this: 'Ta' l-Irish minn dejjem hadid, Jaghmel li jrid, deni jew gid.' In plain English, this translates as 'The Irish are always as strong as metal; they decide if to inflict harm or not'.