Clash of Colours, 1882

When we think of the professional football clubs of the industrialized north that came to dominate the game in the 1880s, it is easy to consider them as being an entirely different entity from the southern clubs of the amateur gentlemen. There was, however, a thread that linked many of the clubs of Lancashire to the public schools from which Association football had developed in the 1860s.
Turton, probably the first Lancashire side, were founded by Old Harrovians (of which more later). The case we will look at here is that of the team that really put the cat among the pigeons by reaching the FA Cup Final in 1882, Blackburn Rovers.

1878:Notice in the picture above how there is inconsistency in the jerseys.

The 'quartered ' shirts and the Maltese Cross motif that Rovers wore in the early days pointed to their (surprising) public school origins. Founder  Arthur Constantine was an Old Salopian (Shewsbury). 

Shrewsbury School, 1912

According to Charles Francis in The History of Blackburn Rovers (1925) several of the 17 present at the  St Leger Hotel On 5th November 1875 were young fellows who had just finished their education at public schools. 
The stipulation in setting out the club livery was that a Maltese cross be worn on the left breast This motif was worn by both the Shrewsbury and Malvern school teams.

Malvern College

Malvern College  provided Rovers with players such as the Greenwood brothers (Thomas, Harry and Doctor) and Fred Hargreaves.

Blackburn Rovers' strip remains one of the most readily recognisable in the world of football, and was much imitated. However, when their first chance of glory came as they reached the FA Cup Final in 1882 they were denied the opportunity of wearing their famous strip.The 11th FA Cup Final was the first to necessitate a change of colours.
John Lewis recalls a letter from Alcock- there is no evidence that a coin was tossed or any lots were drawn in order to decide who changed kit- Rovers were instructed, by letter. Lewis was convinced that this was a bad omen. Rovers also requested assistance with their travelling expenses; the FA declined.

On the day Rovers wore narrow black and white  hoops in the mode of Queen's Park. Old Etonians wore harlequin shirts of light blue and white (a departure from their previous plain light blue). 

River Plate Football Club

1910 

 It was an early example of the democratization of football in South America. 
In 1897, when football was still almost exclusively a bourgeoisie concern, a group of dock workers in Montevideo formed a football club. They called it Cagancha FC.
They applied to join the Uruguayan Football Association but there was an evident distaste for 'native' clubs. So Cagancha changed their name to FC London. The eventual name change to River Plate is said to have been inspired by the name on containers aboard  English ships that docked in Montevideo. 
The club colours were originally black but after the 1904 Civil War they changed to red and white vertical stripes. 

River Plate joined the Primera División of Liga Uruguaya in 1907 and won the championship  in 1908, 1910, 1913 and 1914. They also won the Copa de Honor Cousenier in 1912, beating Racing Club de Avellaneda.

 In 1910  River Plate played the Argentine club  Alumni, 6 times Copa Tie winners and the strongest team in South America. I am unable to identify what the match was played for, was it part of a tournament or simply a friendly?  There was a clash of colours and  River plate wore a change strip of celestial blue.  T he match took place at Parque Central Montevideo on 10.04.10. Alumni took a 1-0 lead but River came back to win 2-1. 

In recognition of this feat the Asociación Uruguaya de Fútbol adopted the celestial blue jerseys as the colour of the national team from 1910 onwards. 

In 1920 River Plate were relegated. They participated in the dissident Federación Uruguaya de Football championship in 1923, finishing 26th out of 32. In 1925 the club ceased to exist.
In 1932 a new club emerged from the merger of Club Atlético Capurro and Olimpia, taking the name Club Atlético River Plate.

The Staffordshire Senior Challenge Cup 1883

Matches such as this were the staple in the pre League football days.

Even in friendly competition local and regional rivalries could become fierce; when a trophy and medals were at stake competition became more intense. Winning a County trophy also enabled a club to secure more lucrative friendly fixtures. In the 1880–81 season West Bromwich Albion had inflicted Stoke's first defeat in competitive football in the first round of this competition. 

This Staffordshire Cup Final, played on April 21st 1883, drew a crowd of  6,150 . To put that into context the FA Cup Final at The Oval that season saw an attendance of 8,000, and the England v Scotland fixture at Bramall Lane  was watched by 7,000,

This match was played at Stoke Athletic Ground. Stoke had scored 42 goals en route to the final. 

1,500 West Bromwich Albion supporters travelled on a Football Special to Stoke.  The 2 clubs were founder members of the Football League 5 years later and 131 years later both feature in the Premier League. 

 Neither team wore the colours with which we now associate them- Albion wore red and white hoops and Stoke blue and black hoops. 

West Bromwich Albion won a thrilling game by 3-2. It was the club's first trophy. 

Both Stoke and West Bromwich Albion entered the FA Cup for the first time in the 1883–84 season.

West Bromwich Albion

Colours...

In September 1890 Wolverhampton Wanderers ran out for their league game against newly elected Sunderland  at  Newcastle Road in the red and white stripes they had been wearing for the past five seasons. The home side, of course, were also wearing red and white stripes, the colours they had adopted in 1887.
The Football league took measures to ensure that this did not happen again.  
In the Football League's AGM of 1891clubs were required to register their colours for the following season.No two clubs could register the same colours.

The text is taken from The Burnley Express, 11th July 1891.

Accrington

Aston Villa

Blackburn Rovers

Bolton Wanderers

Burnley

Derby County

Everton

Notts County

Preston North End

Sunderland

West Bromwich Albion

Wolverhampton Wanderers

Changes for the 1891-92 season were:

Bolton Wanderers

Burnley

Derby County

Strangely Derby adopted a strip that was very similar to Notts County's

Everton

Wolverhampton Wanderers

Newly elected:

 Darwen

Darwen's previous colours.

Stoke

Stoke's previous colours.

Burnley Express, 11th July 1891

Just like watching...

When Botafogo chose their black and white stripes in 1904 they did so on the insistence of one of their founder members who had just returned from college in Italy. This fellow, Itamar Tavares, was an admirer of Juventus.
In 1904 Juventus had adopted these colours accidentally. Abandoning their original pink jerseys they had intended to take the colours of Nottingham Forest. However, they inadvertently ended up with the colours of the other Nottingham team, Notts County.  
Notts County had been playing in black and white stripes since 1890.

Tottenham Hotspur's white strip is a classic. However, they played in a variety of colours before taking to the white in homage to Preston North End in 1898. Preston had first used these colours  in 1888. Amongst Tottenham's earlier kits (1885-1887) was a copy of  Blackburn Rovers' famous blue and white 'quarters' (first worn by Rovers in 1882). 
Another team to pay their respects to Blackburn by imitating their colours was Morozovtsi Orekhovo-Zuevo Moskva, formed in 1887 by English mill owners Clement and Harry Charnock. This club were the forerunners of Dinamo Moscow.

Nottingham Forest had worn redcurrant shirts since their earliest days (1868). In 1886 2 former Forest players who had joined the newly formed Dial Square approached their old club for assistance and were given a set of kit. Dial Square became Woolwich Arsenal in 1893.

  In 1906, on a visit to England,  Dr. Petřík, president of Sparta Prague, acquired a set of jerseys in Woolwich Arsenal's  redcurrant.

In 1904 Nottingham Forest changed from redcurrant to scarlet. When Forest toured south America in 1905 Arístides Langone, the President of the Argentinian club Independiente (Avellaneda) , was inspired to change his team's colours from blue and white halves to red.

The famous English amateur club Corinthians played in white shirts and blue knickers very similar to the England national team (Corinth were formed in 1882 in  an effort to bring the England team up to the level of Scotland).

In 1902 a rift in the Español de Madrid club led to the formation of Madrid Football Club (later Real Madrid). Madrid were coached by an Englishman, Arthur Johnson, and this influenced their adoption of the white strip of the world famous English club.

 Sport Club Corinthians Paulista took both the name and  the colours (although their jerseys were originally cream rather than white) of the 1910 English tourists who inspired their foundation.

Burnley played in a wide  variety of colours during the first 18 years of their existence. Then, from 1900 to 1909 they played in green. This brought them no luck, so they adopted the claret and blue of Aston Villa.

In his youth Joan Gamper (then known as  Hans Kamper) played for FC Basel in his native Switzerland. The club colours were garnet and blue. When Gamper founded Barcelona  in 1899 they adopted these colours.

From 1902 Athletic Bilbao and Club Bizcaya  played in a strip resembling that of Blackburn Rovers. In 1909 Athletic asked Juan Elorduy, a student who was travelling to London,  to buy them a new set of kit. Not being able to acquire the chosen colours, Elorduy settled for the red and white of  Southampton* as these were also the civic colours of Bilbao. Bilbao's sister club, Athletic Club de Madrid, founded by Basques in the capital, were given half of the kit, and retain the colours in their present incarnation as Atlético Madrid.

* Wikipedia incorrectly gives Sunderland.  Why would a journey from London to Bilbao include a stop in Sunderland ?

In 1899 Sparta Rotterdam decided to adopt the colours of Sunderland. Sunderland had introduced the red and white stripes in 1887, adding the black knickers in 1888.

Formed in 1885 Millwall Rovers were a works side, based at JT Morton's cannery and food processing plant on the Isle of Dogs. Morton's was a Scottish firm and many of the employees/ players were Scots. They chose, therefore, the colours of the Scotland national side for their strip.

Italy- The Azzuri- began by playing international games in a white strip, copied from that of the dominant team of the era, Pro Vercelli. Italy changed to blue after one year (in 1911), generally keeping the white as a change strip. 

Founded in  1905 as Club Atlético Estudiantes, Club Estudiantes de La Plata took the colours of Alumni Athletic Club, the most successful team in the early days of football in Argentina.