Manchester United is one of the most popular and oldest football clubs in the world. They were created in the coal city of Manchester in England, from where they grew to become the country’s top club. Overall, Manchester is ranked as one of the world’s 5 best football clubs.
Who owns Manchester United? The team is owned by the Glazer family. In particular, there are 6 Glazer siblings in charge of the club.
History Logo
The club was created in 1878, although it was back then called ‘Newton Heath LYR’ (after one of the areas in Manchester). Their modern name came a bit later – in 1902, following the club’s restructuring into a business-owned team. The ‘United’ in the name refers to it being a team of all Manchester districts.
1878 – 1902
The original logo (used in the Newton Heath period) featured a green shield with a sizeable yellow space inside, both colors likely traditional to the area. Inside the yellow space, the authors put a green locomotive engraving – a reference to the town’s coal industry.
There were also white written parts written over the shield’s green space above. The big word ‘Newton’ was followed by a smaller array of ‘Heath L&YR F.C.’, as well as an even smaller inscription saying ‘established 1878’ in the very bottom of the section.
1902 – 1940
The initial several decades of their existence, Manchester simply used the city’s coat of arms for representation. It’s a red shield with yellow stripes, supported by a white griffin on one side, and a lion on the other. Other elements include a knight’s helmet, yellow-with-red leaves around it and a ribbon below saying ‘wisdom and success’ in Latin.
1940 – 1960
The club’s first own logo features another shield: a white red-framed figure divided into two sections: a smaller one displaying a ship above and a bigger one featuring a devil with a pitchfork below – both red. They were further surrounded by two red ribbons above and below, separated by two red balls in each side.
The writing inside the ribbons respectively spelt: ‘Manchester United’ & ‘Football Club’ in black letters.
1960 – 1970
By the 60s, the shield was transformed: the ship was repainted black, and where the imp was there was now the city’s own shield, but red with black stripes. The ribbons were simplified, while the balls and the lower one were turned white. The writings, for their part, stayed.
1970 – 1973
The logo more or less stayed as it was, although they made it grander this time. All the black parts were painted golden, including the stripes on the shield (which were now thicker and exactly like on the coat of arms). The balls also swapped white for gold, as did the bottom ribbon – except, for red.
1973 – 1998
Much of the logo stayed as it were, with the sole exception of the city’s shield. It was scrapped in favor of a yellow one with a red devil depicted in its center, just like before. The origin of the devil stems from the team’s long-time moniker, the ‘red devils’ (for their uniforms).
1998 – today
Most things remained intact, but it was decided to make the emblem even more prominent. They scrapped the writing on the bottom ribbon and moved the ‘United’ part there. The only white part remaining – the background behind the ship – was turned red. In general, all the colors became more saturated.
Uniform History
Famously, the team’s home uniform consisted of red shirts and white shorts almost unchangingly since the inception. The away colors are a bit different. They changed the design every few years, and they tried lots of combinations. The most popular were blue and white.
They actually put both on their current away uniform: white blue-striped shirts and blue shorts. Other variants also include green, yellow, black and occasionally red.
Manchester United Colors
RED
PANTONE: PMS 485 C
HTML HEX COLOR: #DA291C;
RGB: (218, 41, 28)
CMYK: (0, 95, 100, 0)
YELLOW
PANTONE: PMS 107 C
HTML HEX COLOR: #FBE122;
RGB: (251, 225, 34)
CMYK: (0, 0, 92, 0)
