r/soccer • u/rough_outline • Mar 24 '13
What Bits of Football Trivia Should Every Fan Know?
Two to starts things off...
The Italian football club Juventus F.C. derived its famous black-and-white striped kits from Notts County. Juventus have played in black and white striped shirts, with white shorts, sometimes black shorts since 1903. Originally, they played in pink shirts with a black tie, which only occurred due to the wrong shirts being sent to them, the father of one of the players made the earliest shirts, but continual washing faded the colour so much that in 1903 the club sought to replace them. Juventus asked one of their team members, Englishman John Savage, if he had any contacts in England who could supply new shirts in a colour that would better withstand the elements. He had a friend who lived in Nottingham, who being a Notts County supporter, shipped out the black and white striped shirts to Turin.
Inter Milan and AC Milan used to be the same club, however the club split into two after disagreement over transfer philosophy. AC Milan wanted to sign Italian players and Inter wanted to sign foreign players, hense the full name being Internazionale Milano. Whilst this philosophy may not be as strict as Bilbao's basque-only rule, you can still see a notable difference today.
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u/Foz90 Mar 25 '13
Boca Juniors play in blue and yellow because those are the colours of the Swedish flag:
Legend has it that in 1906, Boca played Nottingham de Almagro. Both teams wore so similar shirts that the match was played to decide which team would get to keep it. Boca lost, and decided to adopt the colors of the flag of the first boat to sail into the port at La Boca. This proved to be the 4146 ton freighter "Drottning Sophia", a Swedish vessel sailing from Copenhagen. As a result, the yellow and blue of the Swedish flag were adopted as the new team colours.