football rambles

Love them or hate them the Real Madrid shirt is probably one of the most iconic in the game. They have had such an influence that clubs have often tried to mimic their all white kit. In 1961 Don Revie took over at Leeds and changed the clubs strip from yellow and blue to all white in an attempt to make the club 'the Yorkshire Real Madrid'. Crystal Palace also had a brief stint in an all white kit between 1964-65 after they decided to honour the Madrid club who played them in a game to open the London club's floodlights. Real Madrid were founded in 1902 and have always worn white shirts with white shorts, although the first kit was accompanied by black socks rather than the more familiar white socks of today. Real Madrid were also open to outside influences though and in 1925-26 they introduced black shorts after seeing London side Corinthians wear this combination. They were impressed by the idea of having a kit that looked like an English team's. however after l...

Next Saturday we are off to London Road again, this time Posh are taking on one of my least favourite teams of all time; Coventry City, who were strangely the first team I saw playing against Stoke at the old Victoria Ground in 1983. Anyway, it's not looking good for the Sky Blues this season, as they currently sit at the bottom of the Championship and all doesn't seem well at the club, it hasn't always been like this though. Coventry were formed as Singers after the factory that made bicycles in the City in 1883. Their original kit was thought to be pink like the colours of the factory, there is also evidence that the Sky Blues wore sky blue in this period too, but that may have been a change shirt. One of the earliest shirts on record was a number that mixed both blue and pink, which dates back to 1889. From 1890 to 1891 Singers adopted a black strip with a pink 'S' on the breast to represent the factory. During the next few years Singers donned a black and red nu...

Hibernian at the moment seem intent on bringing out even more shirts than Borussia Dortmund, so it seemed like a good idea to have a look at their history of their shirts. Recently they brought out a shirt to commemorate the 20th anniversary of their Scottish League Cup Final victory over Dunfermiline. The shirt appears to be pretty accurate, despite being made by a different manufacturer and the original can be seen below, as worn by Keith Wright scoring in the 2-0 victory over the Pars. That said it all seems like a bit of a con for the Hi-Bees faithful with them also having a new home and away kit and a third kit. What they need to have a third kit for is anybody's guess, but they have brought out the lilac effort below that was worn in a home game a couple of weeks ago agianst Motherwell. They lost and Motherwell also wore their away kit. The lilac kit has been advertised by the manufacturers as a homage to yesteryear, but Hibs, who were formed in 1875 first wore a white shir...

On Saturday I'm going to my first Premier League game of the season when Villa take on West Brom in what is the derby game now that the Blues have gone. They might be the local neighbours and Villa's traditional enemy, but it's certainly worth looking at their history. West Bromwich Albion started off as West Bromwich Strollers when they were formed as a team for the George Salter Spring's Works in 1878. They got the name Strollers allegedly after they walked to Wednesbury to buy a football so that they could play. Their first strip was the rather fetching white shirt with a blue sash and hat a baggy trousers shown below. However, they didn't get their nickname 'The Baggies' from this strip rather it was from when their fans turned up to Villa straight from work wearing the baggy aprons of the metal works that got them the name not long after their inception. Their next change of kit came in 1881 when they adopted yellow and white quarters and also wore the ...

The first game that I will be at on Sunday sees Boca Juniors take on Paris Saint Germain. I have always wanted to go and see Boca Juniors and I can't see me getting over to Argentina any time in the near future, so I am going to have to make do with seeing them in North London. On my travels I have met plenty of Boca fans, but funnily enough they have all been Russian or Ukrainian. I am a bit disappointed that Martin Palermo has now retired, but I am still looking forward to it. Obviously to do justice to the club history of Boca Juniors I'd probably have to write a book, so here's a quick history of their kit and colours instead. When Boca were formed in 1905 they originally played in pink, but obviously came round to thinking that this was a bad idea and changed to a light blue colour later in the year. They didn't stick with this shirt for very long either and for the 3rd time in a year decided to change the shirt colour, this time to black and white stripes. The fol...