Football Shirt Culture.com

Atletico madrid launched their new home, away and goalkeeper kits for the 08/09 season made by Nike.

The Club was founded on 9 October 1939. A previous club was originally founded on 26 April 1903 as Athletic Club de Madrid by three Basque students living in Madrid. The founders saw the new club as a branch of Athletic Bilbao. In 1904 they were joined by dissident members of Madrid FC. They began playing in blue and white, as did Athletic Bilbao, but by 1911 they were playing in their current colours. The reason the club changed colours is not known for certain.

However one theory is that red and white striped tops were the cheapest stripes to make because the same combination was used to make bed mattresses. The left over cloth was easily converted into football shirts. Although both Athletic Bilbao and Athletic Madrid started out with blue and white stripes, the discovery of a cheaper option probably persuaded them to change. The Madrid club did it first and they became known as los colchoneros—the mattress makers.

Other more plausible account of the reason to change colours is that both Athletic Bilbao and Athletic Madrid used to buy Blackburn Rovers F.C. blue and white kits in England. Once in 1911 Juanito Elorduy, former player and member of the board of Athletic Madrid, went to England to buy kits for both teams.

He did not find Blackburn Rovers F.C. kits and bought Southampton F.C. red and white ones instead. Athletic Bilbao adopted Southampton F.C. full kit with red and white shirt and black shorts, whereas Athletic Madrid adopted the red and white shirt but kept Blackburn Rovers F.C. blue shorts.

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