Bologna Football Club was founded in 1909 and from the
start played in red and blue. The reason for this is fortuitous and involves an
Austro-Hungarian by the name of Emilio Arnstein and Italian called Arrigo
Gradi. Arnstein was born in Votice, in what is now the Czech Republic, and
studied in Prague and Vienna before moving to Trieste, where he formed Black
Star Football Club along with his brother and a handful of English ex-pats. In
1908 he moved to Bologna and immediately set about finding the local football
club. Legend has that a taxi took him straight to Prati di Caprara, a military
training facility hired out to any local teams that needed it. There Arnstein
met Gradi, wearing the red and blue halved shirt of the college he had
previously attended in Switzerland.
Gradi, along with his brothers, a Swiss dentist by the
name of Louis Rauch, and a number of students from the local Spanish College
(including Antonio Bernabéu, brother of Santiago, who would later play for and
preside over Real Madrid) had set up a team of sorts by the name of Felsineo.
It was Armstein who provided the impetus to establish a proper club, and in
1909 a patron was found willing to support the venture in the shape of Carlo
Sandoni, president of the Circolo Turistico Bolognese. Louis Rauch was
subsequently appointed as president, Emilio Arnstein was named as a director
and Arrigo Gradi club captain.
By 1910 Bologna Football Club was no longer under
Sandoni’s patronage and Arnstein was president. The jersey they'd initially
come up with was modelled on the one Gradi had been wearing on that fateful day
in 1908. Perhaps in an attempt to define their own image – or to differentiate themselves
from the Genoa Cricket & Football Club – the shirts were now modified to form vertical
stripes of the same colour, which is the template the club uses to this day.
There has been an exception: in 1925, the year Bologna
won their first scudetto, they played in green at the behest of their then
manager Enrico Sabattini, in tribute to the Austrian club Rapid Vienna. You
could imagine a precedent such as that sticking, but Bologna soon reverted to
their traditional colours and over the course of the next 16 years added
another five championships to their palmarès. In fact, for a while Bologna –
alongside Juventus – were considered the preeminent force in Italian football,
and with seven championships to their name are historically the sixth most
successful team to play in Serie A.
Bologna were last crowned champions in 1964, were runners
up in ’66 and finished third in ’67. In the early 1970s came two Coppa Italia
victories. In 1982 Bologna were relegated for the first time in the club's history,
and within a year found themselves playing in Serie C1. Bologna won promotion straight
back into Serie B, but struggled. Luigi Corioni assumed the club’s presidency
in 1985 and in ‘87 brought in a young manager called Luigi Maifredi, who he’d
worked with previously while at Ospitaletto. The appointment paid immediate dividends
with Bologna finishing the season in first place.
1970-71 [Courtesy Bologna FC 1909.]
From 1982 though to 1988, Bologna’s kit was made by Ennerre/NR. For their return to Serie A, Uhlsport became the club's technical supplier. Whereas Ennere had utilised four broad-gauge stripes, Uhlsport opted for five with a dark blue one down the middle. (Bologna may be known as the Rossoblù, but the blue is more often than not navy blue.) The shirt was V-necked, fitted with a collar, and was sponsored by Italian coffee roaster Segafredo Zanetti. Shorts and socks were also blue. Whereas Ennerre’s shirts had been made from their trademark heavyweight fabric Lanetta, Uhlsport’s were polyester. Bologna ended their first season back in Serie A in 14th place.
The next year, against the backdrop of a stadium that
was being renovated ahead of the 1990 World Cup, Bologna fared better. Having
added the Brazilian midfielder Geovani Silva, German striker Herbert Waas,
Hungarian defender Nikolaj Iliev and ex-Juventus and San Marino midfielder
Massimo Bonini to their ranks, Bologna finished the season in a very
respectable 8th place – high enough to gain entry into next year's UEFA Cup.
The shirts in which they achieved this feat were identical to those they'd worn
the season before, save for the sponsor's name printed upon them: Mercatone Uno
in place Segafredo Zanetti. Away from home, the previous all-white strip was
embellished to include a blue and red horizontal stripe flicking diagonally
upward towards the left shoulder, which made it more interesting.
Bologna’s success came at a price, attracting the
attention of Juventus who promptly installed Luigi Maifredi as Dino Zoff’s
successor. In 1991 Bologna were relegated, wearing the same shirt, although not
before making it to the quarter finals of both the Coppa Italia and the UEFA
Cup, losing out to Napoli and Sporting Lisbon respectively.
Uhlsport stood by Bologna but Mercatone Uno didn’t.
The electronics manufacturer Sinudyne took over as the club’s sponsor, whose
typeface wasn’t nearly as eye-catching as Segafredo’s or Mercatone’s. Perhaps
for this reason Uhlsport employed micropatterning, and also came up
with their best away shirt yet: white as before, but with alternating dark blue
and red inverted triangles running down the side of sleeves, and ascending from
right to left under the sponsor’s name.
1989-91
Things didn’t work out. Luigi Maifredi was re-instated as coach after his unsuccessful stint at Juventus, but could only secure 13th place. He then left again ten games into the next season to join Genoa, Bologna were relegated to Serie C, and bankruptcy followed. The club quickly re-registered as Bologna Football Club 1909 and clawed their way back to Serie A, where they’ve been playing since 2015.
