From the Beatles to the yellow for convenience, the history of the shirt of Villarreal

Villareal is one of the most fascinating Spanish clubs in La Liga and not only because it is the team of a small village of 50 thousand inhabitants on the Valencian coast, which has managed to become great in its homeland, but also and above all for how it has managed to achieve such successes. The Spaniards, in fact, are the reigning champions of the Europa League, and are ready to face Juventus in the Champions League round of 16, on the strength of the results obtained in the international field, while the bianconeri team has not raised a continental trophy since 1996. 

But between Villarreal and Juventus there is also a sort of thread that links the history of their shirts. Obviously not in terms of their respective colors, but in terms of how much chance has played a key role in the chromatic origin that the two teams still carry with them. On the one hand, the Old Lady owes the black and white color to a mistake made by a factory in Nottingham that, taking a sample of the original pink jerseys that had worn out, thought it was black and white and sent to Turin a case of Notts County jerseys that wore those colors. On the other hand, Villarreal owes its yellow to the lack of stock in the store of uniforms with the original colors and had to divert to other options.

The origin of the yellow uniform

Yellow has not always been the social color of Villarreal. The club founded in 1923, in fact, wore in its early days a white jersey with black shorts, as well as Valencia and Castellon. The latter, moreover, in order to differentiate itself from its rivals, decided to insert black bands on its uniform. It was in the forties, precisely in 1947, that the yellow appeared in the history of Villarreal. The president's son was sent to Valencia, a club that had more money at the time, to buy a batch of new uniforms for his team. The white ones were no longer available, as they were in great demand in the area, while there were plenty of yellow ones with blue shorts. And it was on these that he chose, because they were more similar to the social ones. The fans of the team, with the passing of the games, became accustomed to them and so that remained the chroming of the club. In 2005, then, the president of the Spanish club Fernando Roig decided to go even further. Away with the blue shorts and socks, in with the yellow ones for a total yellow outfit. 

The Beatles and the dispute with Cadiz

Villarreal is also known by the nickname of "Yellow Submarine" - "Submarino Amarillo" in Spanish, "Submarí Groguet" in Valencian - because of the club's social color. A name, however, that would have been disputed in the course of history with another Spanish club, Cadiz, a team that has both the same social colors and the same nickname. Villarreal's was born in the 1967/68 season, when the team was fighting for promotion to the Third Division. A year before, the Beatles had released the album "Revolver" in which the song "Yellow Submarine" was included and that was enough for the fans of the club from the province of Castellon to get the right inspiration. During a home match at the Madrigal stadium, a chorus rose from the stands that read "Amarillo es el Villarreal/amarillo es/amarillo es" right on the notes of the song of the four of Liverpool and from that moment it became customary to refer to the team as the "Submarino Amarillo". 

The cover in Castilian was composed by Los Mustang, a rock quintet of the time that with this song dreamed of the limelight touching the roof of 130 thousand copies sold. The notes of the chorus and the new name then infuriated the Cadiz, which claimed the originality of the nickname. To clarify the matter, however, we thought the rediscovery of some publications of the press of the time that referred to Villarreal as "Submarino Amarillo" a few years earlier than Cadiz.