For every Panathinaikos fan, green is not just a colour. It is Leoforos, the shamrock, the stands packed with people. And yet the story of the shirt begins with a small surprise that few people know.

1908 and Giorgos Kalafatis

On 3 February 1908, the young athlete Giorgos Kalafatis made a decision that changed Greek football. The Panhellenic Gymnastic Club had abolished its football section, and he left together with other athletes. That is how the Football Club of Athens (Podosferikos Omilos Athinon) was born.

The first president was his brother, Alexandros Kalafatis. It is said that Giorgos had been inspired by the football matches of the 1906 Olympic Games in Athens. It is worth noting that for a century the exact founding date was not known, which is why some considered 15 March the official one.

The first shirt was… red

Here is the surprise. The first kits of the club were not green. According to sources, in 1908 the team used white and red.

In the first official match, in Trikala on 9 September 1908, the team's player-coach appeared in a red shirt and white shorts. The sources do not make clear whether these were the official colours or simply the kit of that day.

Green makes its appearance

In 1910 Kalafatis and most of the athletes left again after a disagreement and created the Panhellenic Football Club. According to several sources, green and white were adopted that same year.

Since then green has remained the club's main colour. It is a colour that became linked with nature, with hope and, little by little, with an entire city.

The shamrock of 1918

In 1918 Michalis Papazoglou, an athlete and later general secretary, proposed the shamrock as the emblem. He had worn it himself earlier at Chalcedon in Constantinople. The design was made by Giorgos Chatzopoulos, a club member and director of the National Gallery.

There is also a lovely story behind it. Some sources say the inspiration came from the Canadian runner William Sherring, who won the 1906 Marathon in Athens with a shamrock on his shirt. The club's leaders wanted a symbol that was not parochial but would represent all of Athens.

PAO and Leoforos

In 1922 the City of Athens granted the club the site on Leoforos Alexandras. That is where the team's heart beat for a century. In 1981 the ground was officially named "Apostolos Nikolaidis", and it is considered the oldest football stadium still in use in Greece.

On 15 March 1924 the club took the name Panathinaikos Athlitikos Omilos (Panathenaic Athletic Club). From then on the three letters, PAO, became synonymous with green.

The night of Wembley

On 2 June 1971 the green shirt went where no other Greek shirt has gone. With Ferenc Puskás as coach and Mimis Domazos as captain, Panathinaikos played in the European Cup final at Wembley.

To get there, the team got past Jeunesse Esch, Slovan Bratislava, Everton and Red Star Belgrade. To this day it is the only Greek team to have played in a final of Europe's top competition.

They lost 2-0 to Ajax, but the run went down in history. Antonis Antoniadis finished as the competition's top scorer with ten goals.

The shirt as a piece of history

The Panathinaikos shirt carries Kalafatis, Leoforos, Wembley and whole generations of fans. Every shamrock on the chest is a reminder that this club was born to represent all of Athens.

That is why a green shirt does not just go into the wardrobe. It goes into the collection, it is worn on the big nights and it is passed down from father to child.

See our Panathinaikos jerseys at sportarena.gr.

Photo: The Panathinaikos line-up at the 1971 Wembley final – Anefo / Nationaal Archief, Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC0.