Return of the red and white
The red and white Slavia shirt with five-pointed red star is probably the oldest football shirt still in use. It remains unchanged since our very first game in 1896. The combination of Slavic colours survived Nazi occupation of the Czech Lands between 1939 and 1945 but in 1953 during of communist persecution of Slavia, the club was stripped of its colours, its shirt and its name. Slavia – the symbol of intelligentsia – was renamed “Dynamo” after Soviet model and ordered to play in blue and red or dark blue shirts.
The traditional red and white shirt – one of the club’s most distinctive symbols – returned to the scene exactly 64 years ago. One of the sets was secretly kept in the flat of Slavia treasurer Karel Sehnoutka. On 1 and 2 April Slavia (Dynamo) participated in Easter tournament hosted by Sparta (then also renamed to Spartak Sokolovo) together with Hajduk Split and IFK Göteborg. Despite the still existing ban and despite the fear, our players decided to wear red-white set of shirts for their games. Slavia won both games (3-1 against both Hajduk and IFK) and became champions of the tournament.
The original shirts became the biggest sensation of the event and were greeted with standing ovation. 35,000 people attended both games including then Czechoslovak communist president Antonín Zápotocký. Surprisingly, no punishments followed, and Slavia could return to their original shirts for good.
Today we can present unique colorized photo from that tournament so that everyone could enjoy the beauty of our red and white shirts.
Top row from left: Kocourek, Andrejkovič, Jareš, Hildebrandt, Hubálek, Pešek, Štádler.
Lower row: Fiktus, Jonák, S. Hlaváček, Svoboda
