It used to be compulsory for cyclists riding the Tour
de France to wear black shorts and white socks. As far as I can tell there was
no practical reason for this, but the surfeit of colour that plagues the modern
peloton suggests that it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if the regulation was
reinstated. Where clothing is concerned, chromatic colour – as distinct from
achromatic colour, which has no hue – is something to be used sparingly; human beings are various enough without throwing a riot of iridescence into the mix.
There are exceptions, although not many. The all-red garb
Bill Shankly conjured up for Liverpool is one of them. When they favour it,
Roma’s strip is another.
A.S. Roma’s history may not be as illustrious as those of Juventus, Milan or Inter, but they’ve not done badly. Some statistics: Roma, alongside Juventus, have competed for every Scudetto bar one (only Inter have a better record, having played every season in Serie A since its inception in 1929). They have triumphed thrice and finished as runners up on 14 occasions. Nine Coppa Italia victories have been recorded, second only to Juventus. I Giallorossi – ‘the yellow and reds’ – have also played their fair share of European football, although they failed to win either of the two finals they contested.
All things considered, being a Roma supporter has been
worth the bother, and especially so during the 1980s. They kicked off the
decade with two consecutive Coppa Italia victories – both won on penalties against
the same opposition, Torino. Concurrently, Roma’s league form gradually
improved. They ended the season in sixth place in 1979-80, came second in ‘80-81,
third in ‘81-82, before finally securing their second ever Serie A title in 1982-83,
wearing gear manufactured by Belgian sportswear company Patrick.
Despite failing to defend their scudetto, Roma made a
good go of it in 1983-84: they came second in the league, bagged their fifth
Coppa Italia, and were runners up against Liverpool in the 1984 European Cup final
(Liverpool decked out in red, A.S. Roma in white). By now the team's shirts were
supplied by Kappa, an association that would last three years, culminating in
yet another Coppa Italia triumph in 1986, beating Sampdoria over two legs. Thereafter,
Roma formed an alliance with NR (Ennerre) that would run until 1991, whereupon they
switched to Adidas.
Mutatis
mutandis, the Ennerre kit was neither very
different to the Kappa strip that preceded it nor the Adidas version that came
after: coloured Tyrian purple, which inclines towards red, with shorts and
socks to match. The most significant disparity between the Kappa shirt and the
Ennerre iteration was the tone of the trim – orange in the first instance, a
golden yellow in the next. The difference between the Ennerre and Adidas shirt
was even slighter, the only discernible change being the addition of Adidas’s
iconic stripes upon the shoulder. All three shirts even brandished the same
sponsor – pasta producer Barilla.
Ennerre hooked up with Roma during what was supposed
to be Sven-Göran Eriksson’s third season in charge – 1986-87. Made from acrylic (or lanetta), the corresponding
jersey bore the coccarda but failed to inspire anything higher than a seventh place
finish in the league and a second-round exit in the Coppa Italia (courtesy of
Bologna). Eriksson was shown the door in May, Angelo Sormani took temporary
charge before Nils Liedholm – the man who had guided A.S. Roma to their title
win in 1983 – re-joined the club, intent on resurrecting past glories.
Notwithstanding the loss of Carlo Ancelotti to AC
Milan – from where Leidholm had just came – Roma looked a decent proposition
ahead of ‘87-88. Club legends Giuseppe Giannini and Bruno Conti were still present
and correct, Polish midfielder Zbigniew Boniek had another season left in him,
and the new coach was able to lure promising defender Gianluca Signorini
from Parma (who would leave after one season for Genoa) and the highly coveted
German striker Rudi Völler from Werder Bremen. And
so it proved to be. Völler took time to settle but Giannini rose to the
occasion scoring 11 times from his position in midfield, helping Roma to secure
third place behind Napoli and AC Milan, thus qualifying for the UEFA Cup.
1988-89’s campaign failed to meet expectations. Roma were knocked out in the third round of the
UEFA Cup by East German minnows Dynamo Dresden, only made it as far as the
second round of the Coppa Italia, and finished a disappointing seventh in Serie
A. Nils Liedholm was sent packing, as were the under-performing Brazilian
pairing of Andrade and Renato. On a brighter note, Rudi Völler appeared to be
finding his feet, having scored 15 goals in all competitions.
At any rate, club president Dino Viola had already
decided he wanted Ottavio Bianchi to assume coaching responsibilities, and
would have employed him a year earlier if Bianchi’s contract with Napoli had allowed
for it. (Radice had not been made aware of this and it left a sour taste in his
mouth when it became clear that he’d merely been hired as temporary cover while Roma waited for Bianchi to become available.) Ottavio Bianchi, when he finally
arrived in the summer of 1990, enlisted the services of his ex-Napoli employee
Andrea Carnevale, who was very quickly caught out on a doping violation (along
with goalkeeper Angelo Peruzzi) and banned from competing for the next 12
months. Brazilian defender Aldair signed from Benfica, shoring up a defence
that already included the German centre-back Thomas Berthold.
Meanwhile, Ennerre decided to ditch the acrylic and embrace polyester. In every
other respect the shirt was pretty much the same, save for two strands of yellow
piping running diagonally from the neck down to under the arm. Moreover, as at Napoli, Ennerre supplied two versions of the same shirt: one in unembellished polyester and the other micro-patterned with NR’s magnificent logo. They also provided a second away jersey, in the same style as Napoli's so-called 'cup shirt'. White with a red and yellow convoluted stripe reaching from one arm to the other, the top was used sparingly but has since become something a cult classic.
Roma’s league form was subsequently erratic and they
could only manage ninth place. However, in the UEFA Cup they ran riot and lost
only narrowly over a two-legged final to Italian rivals Inter (Rudi Völler was
the competition’s leading scorer with 10 goals). Then, less than a month later,
Roma sealed an empathetic 4-2 aggregate victory over Serie A winners Sampdoria
in the Coppa Italia.
The Curva Sud
faithful would have to wait another ten years before their team lifted another
trophy – A.S. Roma’s third scudetto – by which time they’d reverted to wearing
white shorts and black socks. Actually, Roma’s kit has fared better over the
years than many of their rivals’, but it's never quite hit the heights that Ennerre bestowed upon them during the latter half of the 1980s and early '90s.
