Hi Folks A little trivia that some may not know, but beware, it is from Wiki. Whilst being nerdy and looking up some of the playes that took Manure apart, I discovered that indeed the 'Stripes' come from one of those chance encounter things when a club offcicial was coming back to bilbao via Southampton, I'll just let you read it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athletic_Bilbao Go to club colours/kit. Lets hope we can reach their quality of football.
Talking about Southampton's influence on football around the globe; here's an interesting fact about the history of football in Brazil and Southampton FC's link: In the 1870s, like many other British workers, a Scottish expatriate named John Miller, worked on the railway construction project in São Paulo with other European immigrants. In 1884, Miller sent his 10-year-old son Charles William Miller to Bannister School in Southampton, England to be educated. Charles was a skilled athlete who quickly picked up the game of football at the time when the Football League was still being formed, and as an accomplished winger and striker Charles held school honours that gained him entry into the Southampton Football Club team, and later into the County team of Hampshire. In 1888, the first sports club was founded in the city, São Paulo Athletic Club. In 1892, while still in England, Charles was invited to play a game for Corinthian F.C., a team formed of players invited from public schools and universities. On his return to Brazil, Charles brought some football equipment and a rule book with him. He then taught the rules of the game to players in São Paulo. São Paulo Athletic Club won the first 3 year's championships. Miller's skills were far above his colleagues at this stage. He was given the honour of contributing his name to a move involving a deft flick of the Ball with the heel "Chaleira" (the "tea-pot"). The first match played by one of Miller's teams was six months after Donohue's. Charles Miller kept a strong bond with English football throughout his life. Teams from Southampton and Corinthians Club travelled to Brazil to play against São Paulo Athletic Club and other teams in the city of São Paulo. After a tour of Corinthians to Brazil in 1910, a new team in Brazil took on the name of Corinthians after a suggestion from Miller.
I always thought Athletic got their shirts from Southampton. The student, charged with buying 25 shirts in London, suddenly buys 50 shirts becauser the local team are Sunderland..? Surely, if you're in London, and you want to catch a boat in early 1900s, you don't travel upto Sunderland to do it..? You either leave from Liverpool or Southampton, via Union Castle Line or similar. So the obvious outcome is that the student catches the train to Southampton, where he finds the local team colours match his own city's and buys 50 shirts. To me, that makes much more sense.
The Atlético Madrid wiki site says it was the saints kit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlético_Madrid (see Foundation) But there does seem to be some question as to the colour of the saints kit at the time.
The truth is that the chap was supposed to get the kit of a different team as Athletico played in blue and white quarters (I think), he couldn't get them in the end and bought Saints shirts on the way out from the country. One of those strange chance encounters. With the South American connection to English football and the railways another little known fact is that the scorer of Argentina's first goal in the world cup 86 final was the grandson of one of the scottish railroad workers. His name (Not very hispanic) was José Luis Brown. There are also quite a few clubs around Europe that were formed by British working abroad. Many were actually Cricket Clubs in the main but football overtook the cricket in popularity as time went on.
Yep the Bilbao kit is the Southampton one. The Madrid one can be said to be also however it was because Atletico Madrid was formed by Bilbao fans living in Madrid so in essence they were actually copying what had become Bilbao's kit rather than Southampton's. Like Bilbao, Madrid originally copied the blue and white kit of Bilbao, they changed to the red and white stripes a year after Bilbao did. So in essence they both play in Southampton colours as they were more like 2 'branches' of the same team at that time.
Well for all the stories that there are, I don't see one that suggets a reason as to why the kit was taken from Sunderland as oppose to Saints. Also, the story that is on wiki if you read it, would be a strange thing to make up!
Well they would, wouldn't they..? After all, there are no teams in the UK, outside of the Premier League. If they mentioned Southampton FC, they'd only confuse the viewers.
No, Stoke City play in White and Red stripes. Anyway, let's add Exeter City and Lincoln City. Sheffield Utd, Brentford too. Can't think of anymore, off the top of my head.
defintitely southampton not Sunderland. They were bought on the way out of England after failing to get the blue and white (blackburn) shirts. Historically they would have got Sheff Utd ones I would think if they were looking for red and white of 'big' English teams at the time. Oh and Juventus don't play in Newcastl shirts. They played in the colours of Notts County. You have to remember who the big teams were back then. Bilbao (and therefore by default Madrid) got the Southampton colours purely by a failure to get Blackburn shirts. All these teams used shirts of the clubs that were 'big' back then and Newcastle were refused entry several times to the top flight and that was a couple of decades after the 'founding teams' of the English league. I would bet most of the teams of the world (especially those formed by British workers) took the colours of the original founding teams or at least very early teams of the English first division. Even those that have since converted to other colours.
