With all this talk of the new England Away kit, we thought it was about time to jump back into the archive and read up on some of the clubs that Umbro sponsors. This time around, we’ve spread our wings further afield and looked at our friends up north, over on the mainland and across the water.

Rangers

Rangers began life in 1872 following a meeting between Moses and Peter McNeil, Peter Campbell and William McBeath, adopting the name of an English rugby club they had read in a book. The newly founded team would go on to play their first game n the summer of that year in a friendly against Callander F.C. using the pitches on Glasgow Green.

Ranger’s first annual meeting took place in 1873 and by 1876 the club would have their first international player with Moses McNeil representing Scotland in a match against Wales.

Rangers would go on to become one of the ten original members of the Scottish Football League and play their first ever league match and league victory on 16 August 1890 against Heart of Midlothian. After finishing at the top of the league with Dumbarton, a play-off was held to decide who would be crowned champions. The match finished 2–2 and the club would make history by sharing the champion’s title, which is the only time that this has ever happened. Rangers would enter the next century with two league titles and three Scottish Cups in their trophy cabinet.

Athletic Bilbao

In the 1800s Bilbao was the hub of an important industrial area, with iron mines and shipyards and attracted many migrant workers, including miners from the north-east of England and shipyard workers from Sunderland, Southampton and Portsmouth. The workers brought the game of football to the city and in the early 1890s they formed Bilbao Football Club.

Around the same time, Bilbao students who had completed their education in Britain returned to the city and in 1898 they would create the Athletic Club. Both clubs would meet to arrange games to play each other.

In 1902 the two clubs formed a combined team known as Club Vizcaya. They would compete in and win the Copa Del Ray by defeating FC Barcelona, a success that lead to the merger of the two clubs and the renaming of the club to Athletic Club de Bilbao.

Universitario

Originally formed by students and professors of the National University of San Marcos on August 7, 1924, the club was created to play in a small league called Federación Universitaria, arranging tournaments between students and the faculty departments of the university. As it grew in popularity the league would gain official status and joined the Peruvian Football Federation (FPF).

In 1928, the club entered Peru’s Primera División and would shock opposing and supporting fans that year by finishing as runners-up. A year later the club would win its first tournament and become Peru’s champions.

In 1931 the club would be forced to change its name by José Antonio Encinas, the head of the university. The club changed its name to Universitario de Deportes and held onto the symbolic “U” in their name.