Everton Blue

Lore & Background

The story of Everton Blue begins in the smoky workshops and working-class streets of Liverpool in the late 1870s. When the club was formed in 1878, the choice of an all-blue strip was deliberate and defiant. In a city where red would soon become the colour of a great rival, blue was Everton's answer — a shade associated with the sky over the Mersey, with the deep waters of the docks, and with the working men who built the club from the ground up. It was not a fashion statement; it was a statement of identity, and it has never been diluted.

By the time the Football League was founded in 1888, Everton were already wearing their blue, and the colour had begun to calcify into something greater than sport. The move to Anfield in 1884 and the subsequent split with John Houlding — which saw Everton relocate to Goodison Park in 1892 — only deepened the bond between the blue shirt and the community that rallied behind it. The blue became a banner of working-class pride in a city that would soon be defined by two great clubs, and for Everton supporters, that blue was theirs before it was anyone else's.

Through the golden eras of Dixie Dean's goal-scoring exploits in the 1920s, the mid-century dominance under managers like Shanks and Catterick, and the modern-day renaissance, the blue has endured. It has been worn by legends and by ordinary lads in the reserves; it has been soaked through in rain at Goodison and dried on radiators in terraced houses across the North-West. The colour has never changed, and that constancy is itself a kind of loyalty — a promise made in 1878 and kept every single matchday since.

Reader's Guide

Everton Blue is, for supporters, far more than a colour on a shirt. It is a language of belonging. In the terraces, the phrase "Blue is the colour" is not a slogan; it is a creed. Supporters will tell you that the all-blue kit — shirt, shorts, socks, all one shade — is a point of quiet pride, a visual unity that says we are one team, one family, one colour.

The tradition of the blue extends well beyond matchday. In working-class communities across Merseyside, the colour has been passed down through generations. A grandparent's old scarf, a father's well-worn replica, a child's first tiny pair of blue boots — the blue is inherited, almost like a surname. It marks you as part of something that predates you and will outlast you.

In the broader culture of English football, Everton Blue stands as one of the oldest continuous colour identities in the sport. It has survived the industrial decline of Liverpool, the rise of global football, and the endless churn of modern ownership, and it remains — stubbornly, beautifully, irrevocably — blue. To wear it is to carry a hundred and forty years of history on your chest, and for those who do, that weight is not a burden. It is a privilege.

Did You Know?

• As a founding member of the Football League in 1888, Everton's blue was among the first colours to be seen in organised league competition in England.
• The nickname 'The Blues' is one of the most recognisable and enduring in English football, a direct and unbroken reflection of the kit colour chosen in the 1870s.