Claret and Blue
The original claret and blue: a chocolate-and-blue minute of November 1886.
Aston Villa's colours are a claret shirt with sky blue sleeves, white shorts with claret and blue trim and sky blue socks with claret and white trim. Villa were the original wearers of claret and blue; nobody is quite sure why the combination was adopted, and the club's first colours were royal blue caps and stockings, hooped royal blue and scarlet jerseys and white knickerbockers, with a club rule that no member could play without the uniform.
Quick Facts
- Home kit
- Claret shirt
- sky blue sleeves
- white shorts
- sky blue socks
- Origin
- Club minute book, 8 November 1886 (chocolate later became claret)
- Also worn by
- West Ham United
- Burnley
- Scunthorpe United
- Trabzonspor; Crystal Palace until the 1970s
- Badge
- Lion rampant
- motto Prepared
- star for the 1982 European Cup (since 2007)
Reader's Guide
Between 1877 and 1879 the team wore a string of different kits, from all white and blue and black to red and blue and plain green. By 1880 the club's Scottish leaders William McGregor and George Ramsay had introduced black jerseys with a Scottish lion rampant on the chest, the first-choice strip for six years, until an entry in the club minute book of Monday 8 November 1886 set the new colours; the chocolate shade in that minute later became claret. Several other clubs took up Villa's colours or also play in claret and blue, among them West Ham United, Burnley, Scunthorpe United and Trabzonspor, and Crystal Palace wore them until the 1970s. The badge revealed in May 2007 kept the lion rampant on a light blue background and the motto 'Prepared', added a star for the 1982 European Cup and shortened the name to AVFC.
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