Few teams have a colour as distinctive as Palermo's pink. The club's story officially begins on 1 November 1900, and this year the Sicilians blow out 126 candles. It is a journey full of falls and rebirths, yet it has almost always kept the same pair of colours: pink and black.

An Anglo-Sicilian beginning

The city's first club was called the Anglo-Palermitan Athletic and Foot-Ball Club, a name that recalls the strong presence of British merchants in the Palermo of the time. Ignazio Majo Pagano is considered its founder, while Joseph Whitaker served as honorary chairman. The first shirt was red and blue, colours that pointed to the British flag. Some sources place the founding in 1897 or 1898, but the date the club celebrates is 1 November 1900.

Pink like the sweet, black like the bitter

In 1907 the team was renamed Palermo Foot-Ball Club and changed colours. The idea came from Count Giuseppe Airoldi, who in a letter described pink and black as the colours of the sweet and the bitter, an image of the good and bad days every team goes through. Ever since, the players have been called the Rosanero. The phrase proved prophetic, because few clubs have tasted both flavours so often.

Four fresh starts

The Palermo we see today is not legally the same club as the one from 1900. In 1927 the team withdrew from the league because of financial problems, and in 1928 it merged with Vigor Palermo as Palermo Football Club. In 1940 it was expelled by the federation for the same reasons, and in 1941 it merged with Juventina Palermo. In 1986 it was excluded again, and a year later it was reborn as US Città di Palermo, starting from Serie C2. Finally, in 2019 it was excluded from Serie B, a new club started from Serie D, and in 2020 it took back the name Palermo Football Club. Through every restart, though, the name, the colours and the history stayed alive.

When pink was banned

There were also years when the team did not wear its own colours. In 1936 the fascist regime forced it to play in yellow and red, while after the 1941 merger Palermo-Juventina played in light blue. In 1942, with the return to Serie B, pink and black were back where they belonged.

The "Presidentissimo" and two finals

From 1970 to 1980 the club was run by Renzo Barbera, whom the fans called the "Presidentissimo". In his decade Palermo reached two Coppa Italia finals: in 1974 it lost to Bologna on penalties, and in 1979 it lost 2-1 to Juventus after extra time, with former Palermo player Franco Causio scoring the winner. That era lives on in the 1970-71 retro shirt and the 1979-80 retro shirt. In 2002 the La Favorita stadium, opened in 1932, was renamed in his honour.

The age of the eagles

In 2002 Maurizio Zamparini bought the club, and two years later he brought it back to Serie A after a 31-year absence. In 2004-05 Luca Toni scored 20 goals and Palermo qualified for the UEFA Cup for the first time. Four of its players, among them Fabio Grosso, were in the Italy squad that won the 2006 World Cup, and Javier Pastore and Paulo Dybala also passed through Sicily. The eagle, also a symbol on the city's coat of arms, gives the team the nickname Aquile and has dominated the crest since 2019. In 2022 Palermo returned to Serie B and joined the City Football Group.

Buon compleanno, Palermo. Through sweet years and bitter ones, pink remains one of the most recognisable colours in European football.

See Palermo shirts and merchandise at sportarena.gr.

Photo: Stadio Renzo Barbera – Estevoaei, Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.