Many people know the famous origin stories of football kits; how Juventus wear black and white stripes because of Notts County, for example, but what about some other lesser-known kit evolution stories? Let’s take a look at who were inspired by whom, or borrowed a kit and quite literally ran with it…
Let’s dial back to one of the oldest clubs around, Nottingham Forest. Founded in 1865, the club was inspired by the red of the hero of the recent Italian unification, Giuseppe Garibaldi. Forest were among the first in the world to wear red – there weren’t many clubs around at that point anyway, just two years after the Football Association rule book was agreed.
A new club from southeast London, Dial Square FC of Woolwich (now known as Arsenal), had three members join from Forest – Charlie Bates, Fred Beardsley and Bill Parr – who brought the kit south with them. Woolwich Arsenal in turn grew in stature, with neighbours Charlton Athletic borrowing the kit in 1905 and the Addicks still wear red today. The following year, Sparta Prague president Dr. Petrik visited London and was inspired by Woolwich Arsenal to swap his club’s colours to red shirts with white sleeves while retaining black socks. The top brass at Braga of Portugal also took inspiration from Arsenal.
Meanwhile, Forest toured Buenos Aires and Rosario in 1905, thrashing five local sides by margins of between 5-0 and 13-1. Arístides Langone, president of Club Atlético Independiente, attended a 6-0 Forest win over top Anglo-Argentine side, Alumni. He promptly changed Independiente’s shirt from white and blue to red, retaining blue shorts.
Spanish kit origins
Blackburn Rovers is responsible for a couple of blue-and-white halves abroad, most notably at Grasshopper Club Zürich, founded by English student and Rovers fan, Tom E. Griffith in 1886. The English-founded Athletic Club de Bilbao also started out in blue-and-white halves until 1910, when it switched to its famous red-and-white stripes and black shorts. There is some debate over whether Athletic Club de Bilbao’s iconic kit was inspired by Southampton or Sunderland. The most-told version is that club member Juan Elorduy was asked to bring back some new Rovers shirts from a trip to London but failed to find any and bought 50 Saints shirts instead before sailing back from Southampton.
Athletic Club’s sister side in Madrid also adopted red-and-white stripes and, after merging with the air force side after the Spanish Civil War, took on blue shorts and hispanicised their name to Club Atlético de Madrid. Atléti’s cross-town rivals Real Madrid apparently were inspired to wear white shirts due to English amateurs, Corinthians, who – of course – also inspired the founding of a certain club in São Paulo, Brazil.
FC Barcelona’s famous Blaugrana (blue and pomegranate) shirts are said to be inspired by the colours of the Merchant Taylors’ School in England, suggested by influential Anglo-Catalan family, the Wittys. Blue and maroon are also the colours of FC Basel in Switzerland, where Barça founder Joan Gamper had played. SD Eibar in the Basque country, founded in 1940, adopted FC Barcelona’s colours. Levante UD of Valencia also wear blue and maroon shirts, taken from a merger in the 1930s with Gimnástico – I’m not sure if Gimnástico had anything to do with Barça, just up the east coast.
In the south, Real Betis’s green and white shirts share the colours of the Andalusian flag but co-founder Manuel Ramos Asensio had also studied in Dumfries, Scotland, at a school opened by Brother Walfrid, founder of Celtic FC. Asensio was apparently a regular at Parkhead.
Irish kit origins
Celtic also inspired the foundation of a namesake club in Belfast. Belfast Celtic ran from 1891-1960 and is still the second most-successful club in the Irish League, despite having pulled out in 1949 due to sectarian violence. The club shared the Glaswegian Celtic’s kit and even received help from the Scottish side to get established.
Another Catholic side in Northern Ireland, Derry City, plays across the border in the League of Ireland. Its red-and-white ‘Candystripes’ and black shorts were inspired by Sheffield United in 1934, where Derry City star Billy Gillespie had starred, winning the FA Cup in 1925. Back in Belfast, Glentoran were inspired to wear red, black and green due to the crest of the Phoenix Park Cricket Club from Dublin.
In the south, Cobh Ramblers from just east of Cork play in the blue and claret of Burnley, who were among the top sides in England when the club was founded in the 1920s.
South American shirt stories
We have already seen the inspiration of English sides Corinthians and Nottingham Forest on South American club colours. There are plenty of other tales to tell. South America’s ‘Club of the 20th Century’, Peñarol of Montevideo, started out as the British-founded Central Uruguay Railway Cricket Club (CURCC), adopting yellow-and-black stripes due to the colour of Stephenson’s train, Rocket. Argentine club Almirante Brown also adopted these colours from Peñarol.
Boca Juniors famously decided on blue and yellow after agreeing to take the flag colours of the next ship to enter the port of La Boca. That ship was Swedish. Up in Rosario, Newell’s Old Boys wear red for Issac Newell’s home country of England and black for that of his wife, Germany.
One of the more bizarre stories is that of three-time Copa Libertadores winner, Club Olimpia from Asunción, Paraguay. Dutch immigrant William Paats founded the side in 1902 and chose its white shirt with distinctive black central band from a breakfast bowl he had as a child.
Other kit curiosities
Did you know that Liverpool FC started out in blue and white halves following its breakaway from Everton in 1892? Liverpool won its first trophy – the Second Division – in these colours until switching to red shirts with white shorts and socks in 1896. The famous all red outfit was not adopted until the sixties at the behest of Bill Shankly.
Also in the 1960s, Don Revie had Leeds United switch from the traditional blue and yellow kit to all white, inspired by the all-conquering Real Madrid side of the time. Blue and yellow has featured in Leeds United kit trims and away kits since then.
Scotland wear blue due to Queen’s Park FC, who provided all eleven players for the first international versus England in November 1872. Queen’s Park switched to black-and-white hoops. Italy play in blue as the Azzurri due to the house of Savoy rather than following the usual convention of taking on the colours of the national flag – otherwise the kit would look something like Mexico or Bulgaria. Spain and Portugal have both worn blue before, notably during the early eras of fascist government when the Franco and Salazar dictatorships associated the colour red with communism.
There are so many kit stories around, I am sure to have missed some famous ones. Do please hit me up on Twitter/X or Instagram with more. If you are equally fascinated in the roots of the sport, do please grab a copy of my first book, Origin Stories: The Pioneers Who Took Football to the World.