galatasaray sports club wore red and white colors when it was first founded in 1905. although yellow and black were used in competitions later on, galatasaray had finally adopted yellow and red as its official colors.
since the match against the british royal navy cruiser hms barham football team played in 1908 on december 8, galatasaray has been using yellow and red.
ali sami yen, the main founder of galatasaray wrote the following in his diaries:
“our goalkeeper asım tevfik, left-forwarder emin bülent and right midfielder ali sami yen are commissioned for the task of determining new team colors.
“after we have been in and out of several shops, we saw two different elegant-looking wool materials in fatty yanko’s store at bahçekapısı (between eminönü and sirkeci in ıstanbul, now called bahçekapı). one of them was quite dark red, resembling the cherry color, and the other a rich yellow with a touch of orange. when the sales clerk made the two fabrics fly together with a twist of his hand they became so bright that it reminded us the beauty of a goldfinch. we thought we were looking at the colors flickering in burning fire. we were picturing the yellow-red flames shining on our team and dreaming that it would take us to victories. ındeed it did.”
yet, bekir sıtkı, one of the founders, had pointed out that yellow and red were inspired from the colors of the roses which gül baba (alias cafer) offered to sultan bayezid ıı.
gül baba was an ottoman bektashi dervish poet and a companion of suleiman the magnificent who declared him the patron saint of budapest where he died during the capture of the city in mid-sixteenth century.
