Why do Aston Villa wear their iconic claret and blue colours?
Aston Villa are famous for wearing their iconic claret and blue.
The Villans are a historic outfit in English football, having won the European Cup in 1982, and more recently, Aston Villa reached the quarter-finals of the Champions League.
Equally, the iconic strip has been showcased during their dark days of Championship football between 2016 and 2019, with Steve Bruce’s awful football with Aston Villa difficult to watch.
This season hasn’t gotten off to the best of starts for Unai Emery’s side, but there is no doubt that they will begin to find their form in the coming weeks.
Now, Villa News has delved into why the Midlands club wear claret and blue and how their colours have developed over the years.
Aston Villa originally wore plain colours
The club was formed by the Villa Cross Wesleyan Chapel cricket team in Aston, with the players wanting a sport to play during the winter.
In their early years, Villa wore plain colours, including an all black strip with the Scottish Lion showcased on the badge.
They then began to wear variations of red and blue across the 1870s and 1880s, before adopting their claret and blue strip.
The Villans wore a claret shirt with blue sleeves when they won their first FA Cup in 1887, and since then, the look has stuck.
Aston Villa were among the first English clubs to wear claret and blue, and their success in the late 19th century popularised the colour scheme.
West Ham and Burnley copied Aston Villa’s strip
West Ham adopted Villa’s claret and blue colour scheme in 1903.
Hammers defender and English sprinter William Belton visited Birmingham, and a group of Aston Villa players asked him to race them.
Villa players believed they would win easily, but ultimately lost the race and offered Belton an Aston Villa kit as his prize.
The Irons have gone on to wear the famous colours since.
Burnley also adopted the colours in 1910 as they wanted to replicate Villa’s success.
The move worked, as within a decade, Burnley were First Division champions in the 1920–21 season.
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