The Historical Colours of Botev Plovidv FC

Botev Plovdiv adopted golden yellow and black as its distinguished colours in 1917. It is obscure what determined the choice as the urban folklore spread several legends how the colours were chosen. Very attractive are two stories which went out through the years. 

The first one considers yellow and black as a symbol of unity between the club founders - boys from Saint Augustin College (Golden colour) and their schoolfellows from Gymnasium Prinz Alexander I von Battenberg (Black).

The second hearsay states that founders have been inspired by the Viennese clubs' organisation and in such respect adopted the Austrian imperial colours. It is worth mentioning Bulgaria was in alliance with Austria-Hungary at that time in WWI. The elaborated club badge was identical to the SK Rapid Wien crest as well and first appeared on the team's shirt in 1926.

The team in 1926.

 

Nevertheless most plausible sounds the simple story of "yellow as the sun and black as the land of Thrace" for club colours. 

Predominantly the team played in yellow and black stripes in the 1920s while next two decades plain yellow shirts or all-black uniform were preferred. 

Botev Plovdiv passed over several name changes during the communist period (1944-1989) simultaneously with some kit variations - in all-white, red-yellow halved and red-white stripes.
During the 1960s Botev forged a reputation as one of the leading sides in Bulgaria winning the national cup in 1962 (then called Soviet Army's Cup) and league title in 1967. In 1961-1962 season the club introduced a crest - a simple shield with black and yellow stripes at an angle, wrapped by wreath - which was used until 1967 and then after 1989 with slight modifications.
The club officially acknowledge The Canaries as a nickname though there are not clear evidences how it emerged. Allegedly it comes from the song "Blue Canary" by Marisa Fiordaliso and Carlo Buti which has been an opening theme of home matches since 1961. Earlier nicknames were "The Yellows" and "The Plovdiv Army Boys" due to the fact they came under patronage of the Army's local garrison in 1950s.

In 1980 Botev Plovdiv commenced supply of their branded kits. The first contract with Adidas lasted for three seasons and the team had wearing the iconic trefoil logo and three-stripe trim, then turned out in Puma shirts with black V-neck (without a crest). In 1987 the Canaries wore narrow stripes from the same brand's stock. The Italian sportswear company ABM took over as team's kit supplier for their first season back in the traditional name (from 1967 to 1989 Botev bore the name of Trakia) and strips featured the new club logo based on redesigned 1960s crest. Mid-90s introduced Botev's famous chequered Diadora strip when the so-called "Brokers" (Hristo Danov, Hristo Aleksandrov, Ivan Radichev) poured huge amounts of cash into the team. The following kit manufacturers have been used by the club so far - Adidas (1980-1984), Puma (1985-1991), ABM (1991-1993), Diadora (1993-1995), Puma (1995-1999), TenevSport (2000), Diadora (2000-2009), Errea (2010-2012), Adidas (2012-2013), Uhlsport (2013-2016), Joma (2016-2017) and Uhlsport again for the season 2017-2018.

The oldest club crest was slightly modified in 2010 and was embroidered onto the shirt replacing the popular shield-wise logo used for twenty years (1989-2009). Before this period badges were not often worn on the team shirts. In fact during the early years of the communist regime the club took as an insignia the crest of the local military headquarters or adopted versions of it, occasionally slightly altered and accompanied by the club’s initials or full name. Probably this paves the way for further deviations in logos and the researchers may find several variations of a badge from one and the same period of club's history. Recently the club became more aware of the merchandising potential of its logo and started paying much attention to corporate branding. However it is still far way from best examples of branding policy even for the size of Bulgaria.

The motto of the club is "Krasota. Vjara. Borba." (in English - beauty, faith, fight) and originally first appeared on fans' printing materials in the end of 20^th century.