It all began with a ball under the Christmas tree. Young Boys were founded in Bern on 14 March 1898 by four schoolboys, and on 14 March 2027 the club turns 129 years old. This is the story of the yellow and black shirt of the Swiss capital.

Four schoolboys and a present

According to the story the club itself revived for its 125th anniversary, the Schwab brothers were given a football for Christmas in 1897. A few months later, together with Hermann Bauer and Franz Kehrli, they started their own team.

All four were grammar-school pupils. At first the team ran as a pupils' side of FC Bern, but within months there was a split and the youngsters went their own way. They won their first match, on 17 June 1898.

Why "Young Boys"

The name is a friendly nod to Basel's Old Boys, one of the clubs of the time. The "old boys" of Basel now had the "young boys" of Bern to deal with.

The original name was FC Young Boys. In 1925 it became Berner Sport Club Young Boys, but all of Switzerland simply calls the club "YB". In Bernese German the Y is pronounced like an "ee".

Yellow and black

The yellow and black colours were chosen by the four founders themselves. The sources we found do not explain why they picked them. What is certain is that they have never changed since.

Fans call them "Gäub-Schwarz" in their local dialect, and to everyone the team is "the Yellow-Blacks". Several manufacturers have made the shirts, including Puma from 2006, JAKO from 2012 and later Nike.

Wankdorf: where the "miracle" happened

In 1925 YB moved into the newly built Wankdorf. There, in 1954, West Germany beat Hungary in the World Cup final, the famous "Miracle of Bern".

For the World Cup the ground, which originally held 22,000, was expanded to more than 60,000. It was the biggest stage Swiss football had ever seen.

The old stadium was demolished in 2001 and the team spent four years at the Neufeld. In 2005 it returned to the new Wankdorf, which has a large solar power plant on its roof. Fans always wait for the "YB quarter of an hour", the last 15 minutes of every match.

From Geni Meier to a new golden age

From 1957 to 1960 YB won four league titles in a row under coach Albert Sing. In 1959 they reached the European Cup semi-finals, beating Reims with a goal from Geni Meier, the club's all-time top scorer with 313 official goals.

A special story from that era is the 1961 tour of the Far East: 30 days, about 27,000 kilometres and ten matches. Heinz Schneiter later recalled that the trip wore the players out, and the team failed to defend its title.

Hard times followed, with relegation in 1997 and the threat of bankruptcy in 1999. But in 2018 YB were champions again after 32 years, opening a new era with a run of titles and Champions League wins over Juventus and Manchester United.

Great names of the shirt include goalkeeper Walter Eich, Heinz Schneiter and Stéphane Chapuisat, who was voted the best player in the club's history.

Celebrate with us

From a Christmas football to Champions League nights, Young Boys have stayed loyal to yellow and black for 129 years. Happy birthday to the Yellow-Blacks of Bern!

See our Young Boys jerseys at sportarena.gr.

Photo: The Wankdorf before a Champions League match against Ferencváros (2021) – Vincenzo.togni, Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.