Newcastle United Football Club was founded in 1892, when two local football clubs which had grown out of local cricket clubs merged together. The clubs that merged to form Newcastle United Football Club were the Newcastle West End club (which in the seasons around 1881 had a club kit with a red and black hoop striped jersey, white shorts and black socks) and the Newcastle East End club (which had a red shirt, white shorts and black socks). When Newcastle United Football Club started they used the old uniform of the East End club for the first season; from 1894, however, they adopted a pattern of vertical black and white stripes on the jersey (including on the sleeves) and black shorts, which would become the standard colours and club kit design for Newcastle United Football Club for the rest of its history.

The design of the jersey used the same scheme for the next century, and the shorts remained black with the exception of the season of 1897 when the shorts were dark blue and the years from 1903 to 1912 when the shorts were navy blue. The most notable changes to the uniform over the years (besides regular changes to the sock striping, although the colours of the socks always remained black and white as with the rest of the outfit) were changes to the style / cut of the shirt. The collar of the shirt went through many of the style changes that took place in football uniforms over the decades, the length of the sleeves changed for some seasons, and the particular number and width of the vertical stripes changed several times. In 1969, a crest was added to the center of the jersey's chest, and was on the upper left breast of the shirt from 1970 to 1973. From 1976 to 1979 the sleeves of the jersey were white (instead of black and white vertical stripes) with black trim. The current home jersey as of 2007 is another rare example of the sleeves being a solid colour, this time black with white trim. In the eighties, sponsor names started to appear on the front of Newcastle United Football Club kit jersey, with the star representing McEwan's Lager for several seasons, and other sponsors including Greenall's Beers and Northern Rock.

Newcastle United Football Club is one of the most successful football teams in history, being the eighth most successful club in the entire span of football in England. As of 2007 the Newcastle United club has won the FA Cup six times and the First Division Championship four times. While the colours of the home jersey for Newcastle United Football Club have remained very steady over the years, the colours for the away jersey have changed often and erratically, between blue, yellow, green, all black, all white, yellow and grey. In the 1995 season the away uniform for Newcastle United Football Club had blue and maroon hoop stripes on the jersey (a design which was brought back for 2006). The current away colours for Newcastle United Football Club are a mostly sky blue club kit - the primary colour for most of the jersey, as well as the shorts and socks is sky blue, while the trim on the jersey is black and a single black interrupted stripe snakes its way down the front of the shirt (avoiding the sponsor logo in the middle).