From the historic rojiblancas socks of the rise of Sporting with Prendes, to the criticism for the white pants: “It is another contempt for the fans”

2023-06-02 04:15:00

Sporting will play next season with white shorts. The club has decided to renew the first kit with the change of the blue shorts that he had been wearing in recent seasons. He will also change the stockings. It will not be to return to white, as happened for the last time in the 1996-97 season. The stockings will be of a different color. The historical range of the Gijón team specifies the models in four different ones for the lower part of the kit: black, red, rojiblancas and the blue ones worn up to now. Among all of them, he likes the possibility of playing a game with the rojiblanco.

The new Sporting first kit will come with news beyond the shirt. The clothing developed by the sports brand Puma will have one of the striking variations in the pants, with the commitment to white as the protagonist. It was the tone used for this garment in the early years of the club. “In 1911, Sporting was already champion of Asturias for children (under-18) wearing a red and white shirt, white shorts and black socks,” recalls Frichu Yustas, a fan of the Gijón club’s history.

The most recent stage in white pants was with the entry of Plácido Rodríguez to the presidency. He arrived hand in hand with a new brand to dress the team, the Italian Lotto. The pants and stockings became white. This stage included between the 1991-92 and 1993-94 campaigns. Joma was next, with a design in which the greatest innovation was to include red and white stripes around the chest. The association lasted three seasons, from 1994-95 to 1996-97, and kept the white shorts and socks. Then, the call for a referendum so that the shareholders could vote on the convenience of maintaining this design or recovering blue pants and black socks gave the latter the winner.

The historic ex-player and manager Florentino García Sordo recalled that the sportinguistas bought their first “red-and-white” shirts, like the colors of the Gijón maritime license plate. Anselmo López, Sporting’s first president, bought that first kit at the El Águila store, located on San Bernardo street in Gijón. While it was clear what the jacket was, the choice of stockings and pants was somewhat anarchic. With the philosophy of “first thing at hand”, the team wore different colors in both garments, although white shorts predominated at first. The “blue denim” dominated later for being an easier and cheaper fabric to acquire in the last century. As for the socks, the colors black, red, blue, white and rojiblanco have marked different stages. The promotion to the First Division in 1951, the second in the club’s history, was with red and white socks. It had among its protagonists Prendes, today the dean player of Sporting.

“This is a new contempt for the fans”

Víctor Díaz is a Sporting shareholder and one of the promoters of the historic referendum held in 1996 by the club, in which the shareholders voted in favor of eliminating the white pants and socks, to recover the blue color of the shorts and the black in the bottom of kit. “It seems to me a new contempt for the fans,” says the man from Gijón about Sporting’s decision to wear white pants next season. “There are things that cannot be changed in a club and one of them is its kit. The club’s past was written with blue pants and it should remain that way,” Díaz stressed. “A few months ago I transferred to Joaquín (Alonso, institutional relations of the club) an article detailing historical aspects such as Sporting’s clothing. My wish was that he would send it to the appropriate person, I understand that David Guerra ( CEO). I see you haven’t gotten anywhere,” he says, annoyed, about the upcoming outfit. “Orlegi does not care about history, they advocate profitability,” continues Víctor Díaz about his position regarding the renewal of the Gijón team’s kit, a detail for which he assures: “I am not going to renew the subscription. I don’t give a penny more to these people.” He goes further. “Instead of a Sporting de Gijón, we increasingly have a Sporting de México”, he concludes.