The Colors of Galatasaray

The Colors of Galatasaray

The choosing of the 'colors' of the football/soccer team of Galatasaray, Istanbul, Turkey, is the topic of my writing today. 

The love of Galatasaray to her current colors, was a 'love at first' story, as the saying goes. I will explain.  

One of the founders of Gala was Mr Ali Sami Yen, and this story is from his recalling of the incident of the decision to choose the colors.  

          Gala of 1909

I will translate this story from author Mr Utku Erisik's book titled: 'Hava Atisi'. 

The first colors of Gala was the colors of Turkey's flag of red and white.  

The very first jerseys were 'hand-sown' by another of the founders of Gala, the goalkeeper Mr Asım Tevfik's mother and his sister.  

Mr Yen states that "When we first wore the red and white jerseys, we as a team got scared, as we did not want to be in trouble with the state and the occupiers of our home land".  

I will need to give some 'historical' background here.  Galatasaray was founded in 1905, and during this turmoil times, before World Was I, the Ottoman Empire was fighting many uprisings from all corners of her territory.  Plus, the British and French, to name a couple of 'opportunistic' countries were busily trying to occupy further territories of this 'collapsing' Empire.  

Therefore, Mr Yen was trying to explain that, him and his team mates did not want to be killed by the occupiers for having the colors of red and white; the colors of the flag for both the Ottoman Empire and Turkey.  

The red and white jerseys were retired immediately, and 20 new jerseys with the colors of yellow and black were ordered from England.  However, when the jerseys arrived from England, none of the founders and players liked this new color combination, and once again, another jersey with the colors of yellow and black, were retired.  

Therefore, the search for the colors of Gala was still quietly in progress.  

The goalkeeper of Mr Asım Tevfik and Left-side defenseman named Mr Emin Bulend, 'informally' took on the duty, to find the 'true' colors of Gala.  

One afternoon when Mr Tevfik and Mr Bulend were walking in the neighbourhood called 'Bahcekapi', inside a clothing store, they spotted, in their own words "Two elegant and soft fabrics, placed side by side, one was a bit darker color of a 'sweet' red cherry fruit, and the other was a 'full', 'bright' yellow, with a tiny hint of the color being in-between yellow and orange.  

When the players saw these colors side by side, a flame was born inside of them, and they immediately knew that all other founders and players would approve this color combination.  

The two fabrics were taken home to be sown into a jersey by Mr Tevfik's mother again.  

The first time the colors of yellow and red were worn on December 6, 1908 against an English team of soldiers from the 'War ship' named 'Barham'.   

Ever since this date, the colors of Galatasaray has stayed the same.  

I thought this was an interesting story and wanted to share with you.  

Thank you.