I've noticed that Hamburg, whose club colors are blue and white, have taken to wearing red and white kits. What's the story?
Blue-white-black are the team colors. They are called 'Rothosen' (red-shorts), which I think has a long tradition. Why they don't play in their team colors? No clue.
I think it has to do with the colours of the "Hanse", which are also the colours of Hamburg. They are white and red. domingo
Ah, just back from a long BigSoccer hiatus and already I see a question I can help out with. Cool... The HSV colors and strip are the result of a classic compromise. Just after WorldWar 1, on the 1st of June 1919, three smaller teams from Hamburg (SC Germania, Hamburger FC and FC Falke 1906) united to form Hamburger SV in order to pool resources and maximize their impact on the footballing scene (and very successfully so, as the newly formed club would go on to win several German championships during the 1920s with further glory in the 60s, 70s and of course 80s) Naturally, there was much disagreement among the three about which team's colors should prevail for the new club. After much discussion, blue and black, the colors of the oldest, largest and most successful of the three uniting clubs (SC Germania) were chosen with white thrown in for good measure and contrast. This is of course also where the famous "Raute" crest comes from. In order not to give too much weight to either of the three clubs as well as to demonstrate the new club's claim as THE big club in Hamburg the colors of the city of Hamburg, red and white, were chosen for the shirts & shorts. Finally, the newly agreed upon club colors, black, white and blue, were selected for the socks, which are indeed very cool and unique as a result. As a result, HSV have sometimes been known as Die Rothosen (The red shorts), a name which survives to this day in the club's largest fan club. Apart from a brief and ill-advised period during the late 70s, when HSV played in pink (!!!) shirts and blue shorts, they have stuck with these colors through the years. The away strip is normally blue and black, with red a popular third choice.
...couldn't have said it better myself...really. That's great information. And I thought I was a big HSV fan!
During the 77/78 season, HSV's then general manager Dr.Peter Krohn had the insane idea that HSV should wear pink shirts in order to attract more female spectators (no, really!). If I tell you that he also hired elephants from Hamburg zoo and made the players parade through the city on said poor pachyderms before the season began, you'll know that Krohn was a bizarre and larger-than-life Legend In His Own Mind kinda guy. Never a dull moment... Now, it's not as if HSV were truly desperate then, the team, containing many very promising youngsters such as Kargus, Kaltz or Magath, had just won the - now sadly defunct - European Cup Winners' Cup against Anderlecht and Krohn had his sights firmly set on turning the sleeping north-german giant into a European powerhouse at last. Before the 77/78 season, he bought Kevin Keegan from Liverpool for an outrageous amount of money and declared "all systems go". Inevitably, HSV had a stinker of a season, with Keegan lost in pink-shirted confusion, so eventually Krohn accepted defeat and resigned. The pink shirts were never heard of again and the elephants were left alone in years to come. His successor, the legendary Günter Netzer, in tandem with the at-least-as-legendary Austrian coach Ernst Happel, managed to turn things around the next year and achieved real and lasting success, including 3 German championships between 79 and 83 and of course the European Cup in 1983 as well as an unlucky defeat in the final by Nottingham Forest in 1980. Kevin Keegan became one of the biggest stars of the game (at the time there was a deluge of babies named Kevin in Hamburg in his honor) and won the European Player of the Year title. I haven't been able to find many photos of the dreaded pink outfits, but here's one (ok, only the top half, but still) of former HSV captain Peter Nogly: http://www.fussballdaten.de/bilder/vereine/hamburgersv/1976-1977/noglypeter_t.jpg and one of Felix Magath: http://www.fussballdaten.de/bilder/vereine/hamburgersv/1976-1977/magathfelix_t.jpg Here are some pictures of older team strips of HSV (although not the pink one): http://www.fussballdaten.de/galerie/?Zeige=Verein&Verein=3042 I'll have a look around to see if I can dig up some more stuff.
Ok, found a picture of the whole team squad in pink: http://www.portraitfirma.de/hafau7677.jpg A classic...
Just a question: The team is wearing new Nike socks with black and white stripes on the top of the sock. Do the stripes extend down inside of the sock (i.e., is it reversable?)