Iconic kits: Gil Vicente 1999/2000 | OneFootball

Nobody knew it then, but when the 1999/2000 season kicked off, Gil Vicente were about to experience their most memorable campaign ever. And who could blame those who had low expectations? The side had just been promoted from the second tier, and anything but fighting for survival until the very last day looked a challenge, particularly because the fixture list had them facing five-time league champions Porto on the last day of the season.

Yet, nine months later, history was written rather differently, and that red kit became forever entwined with the Barcelos club’s history, and, indeed, Portuguese football iconography as well.

Named after Portugal’s “father of theatre”

Barcelos is a small town north of Braga, which has been steeped in the traditions of the Minho region for centuries. The birthplace of Gil Vicente, the famous medieval poet who elevated Portuguese playwriting to another level and is considered the father of the nation’s theatre, it was a site in the Middle Ages that always suffered the towering presence of Braga at its border, a city that controlled the economics and social shifts of the region throughout the centuries.

A rural place, it was after the Carnation Revolution in 1974 that the local textile industry thrived, much as had happened in the regions between the River Cávado and the River Ave bordering Porto’s northern stretches. Low wages, deficient infrastructure, and child labour were the engines behind the economic shift, helped by the entrance into the European Common Market in 1986, which made the Portuguese textile products cheap in comparison with their European neighbours and thus more apt for export. The local economy was revamped, small fortunes came about in a couple of years, and the riches brought by the international sales found their way into politics and sports, as expected.

Revolution shifts social demographics

A surge of clubs from the region assaulted the first tier the same way teams based around the powerful ship-building and coal industries south of Lisbon had done so in the first decades of the professional game in Portugal. The shift in the economy after the political revolution of 1974 meant the Setúbal region was usurped by the Braga district in economic and social relevance, and so it happened with football. Gil Vicente, the local club, named after its historical celebrity native son, was part of the trend, joining the likes of Famalicão, Paços de Ferreira, Vizela, Fafe, Penafiel, Rio Ave, Varzim, Trofense, Desportivo das Aves and Moreirense, in getting an opportunity to emerge from the anonymity of lower-tier football for a chance at the top table.

Gil became a yo-yo club for much of the 1990s, and as the decade unfolded, they found themselves in the second tier once again. A brilliant 1998/99 campaign meant the club got promoted back to the first tier, but expectations were low. The crowds turning up at the Adelino Ribeiro Novo stadium knew they were likely in for another bumpy ride at a crossroads moment in Portuguese football history.

Patrick takes over shirt design

By the summer of 1999, the club had signed a deal with the manufacturer Patrick, ending a one-year collaboration with Lacatoni, a local company from Braga. The Belgian-founded company were expanding into Portugal and had a long history in the game. Contrary to the Braga company who Gil Vicente had previously worked with, and had just a decade of existence by then, Patrick was almost a hundred years old and first entered into the football arena by sponsoring the famed French international Robert Piantoni, who played with their boots in the 1956 and 1959 European Cup finals, as well as in the 1958 World Cup. The company moved from shoes and clothes manufacturing into kit making in the following decades, and they were known for providing material for the likes of Kevin Keegan, Michael Laudrup and Michel Platini.

They found their way during the decade into English football and also to several Iberian teams, with Gil Vicente one of them. For the 1999/2000 season, they kept the design true to what was expected of a Gil Vicente kit. The side had historically played in all red as the first kit, with an all blue and all white version used as alternatives, and the Belgian did some minor adjustments to their traditional template.

Gil Vicente’s first kit for the 1999/2000 season. (Image: www.footballkitarchive.com)

For the first kit main shirt, the all-red was replaced by a horizontal blue strip that stretched from the arms and shoulders up to the collar, which was then drawn in white, to represent the three main colours of the club’s badge. The company logo, in white, was placed centrally instead of on the right-hand side of the chest, and sponsorship of the local construction company F.M. Magalhães was given a full central position that dominated much of the shirt, in white. The shorts were also red with blue stripes on them, the same as the socks, even if they used their blue ones on occasion, such as when they travelled to play Boavista, Sporting or Belenenses away.

For the alternative version, Patrick changed the template, going for a mainly all-white shirt – instead of the customary blue – with the bottom half of the shoulders in red with a fine blue line bordering from the collar down through the arm length. The sponsorship was drawn in blue, and the logo of the Belgian company, also centred, was placed in red to provide a more complete chromatic experience. They used the kit against Alverca, and those same white shorts were partnered with the red shirt on more than one occasion, such as for the match against Santa Clara. There was a third kit that replicated the first one, with blue as the main colour, which was rarely used during the season, only against Braga and Salgueiros.

Gil Vicente’s second kit for the 1999/2000 season. (Image: www.footballkitarchive.com)

Coached by former international Alvaro Magalhães, Gil Vicente started the season in good fashion. They played essentially on what was a 4-3-3 design to exploit the counter-attacking options provided by their wingers, Carlitos, Casquilho, Guga, and Fangueiro, who often switched positions in the attacking line. Ricardo Nascimento provided the quality forward passes while Pedro Santos and Petit, loaned by Boavista, brought a hard-working mentality to the centre of the pitch. Paulo Jorge usually played in goal, despite the celebrity signing of Peter Rufai, former Farense goalkeeper who had just left Deportivo La Coruña in the summer, and the likes of Bessa, Auri, Carlos Martins, Sérgio Lomba, Zé Nando and Lemos were mostly used in defence.

Gil didn’t suffer their first defeat until the fourth round, at the hands of their local rivals Vitória SC in Guimarães, after beating Campomaiorense and Leiria at home and drawing against Belenenses away. The following round, they managed to hold Sporting to a draw at the Adelino Ribeiro Novo, wearing their now ever more popular all-red kit, and then went on a six-game winning streak, which was unheard of in the history of the club, beating the likes of Salgueiros, Santa Clara, Vitória FC, Leça, Farense and Estrela da Amadora.

Gil Vicente made a tremendous start to the 1999/2000 season (V=Victory, D=Defeat, E=Draw)

However, despite the brilliant start to the campaign, hard times followed. From the start of December to mid-February, they didn’t win a single match, losing five and drawing four, a sequence that saw them fall down the table. Crucially, it was a win at home against the men from Guimarães that changed the tide once again, followed by a famous draw at Alvalade, when Sporting were starting to mount pressure on Porto in the title race.

For the following twelve matches up until the end of the season, Gil Vicente lost only twice, away at Benfica and then in the Bessa stadium. They also draw against Santa Clara in the Azores and at home with Estrela da Amadora and Alverca, before facing Braga in the penultimate round of the league. Surprisingly, Gil were ahead of their big city rivals in the league table and also above Vitória SC on their quest to finish fourth, the last position that booked a place in the UEFA Cup for the following season. Poor results over several years meant Portugal only had four slots for the following campaign, and with Porto and Sporting bound to play the Cup final with their Champions League places already booked, it meant whoever finished fourth would join Benfica in the UEFA Cup.

Grandstand finish

There were four contenders: Vitória SC, Marítimo, Boavista and surprise package Gil. They needed to earn the points they had dropped versus Boavista and Alverca, but their last two matches against Braga and Porto looked too difficult for them to aspire to anything more than a worthy sixth-place position, which would still rank as their best ever finish. Alas a draw against Braga, coupled with a Boavista win, meant they could no longer claim that European place after all, but they still had a good opportunity to hold on to their fifth spot if they managed to equal Marítimo’s result in the last round of matches.

The problem was, they were facing FC Porto, who needed a win from the Adelino Ribeiro Novo, as they hoped for Sporting to slip up on their visit to Salgueiros. In one of the most memorable afternoons in the history of Portuguese football, as Sporting cruised to a win, Porto were hammered in Barcelos by a local side who played perhaps their best match of the campaign, netting two goals past Hilário to claim a memorable win. A ticket to Europe would have been a worthy reward after such a memorable campaign, and it would have made their iconic red kit even more popular, but Gil Vicente had to wait almost two decades before they would finally have a taste of continental football. An experience that came after they were relegated after a Belenenses protest regarding the signing of the striker Mateus, and were almost disbanded, before they rose again from the lower leagues to establish themselves now as a top-tier regular.

Shirts have come and gone, patterns have changed, and so have brand manufacturers. Gil Vicente’s relationship with Patrick didn’t last beyond 2004. Later, they returned to Lacatoni, which is now a well-established brand in the Portuguese market, responsible for some of the most popular and breathtaking kits in the league over the past few years. With time, the club experienced a change of crest, a return to their old self and a move away from the famous local rooster of Barcelos, a link Lacatoni has been able to explore rather well.

Still, for those supporters who never dreamt of a season where they remained unbeaten against the league champions beat the almighty Porto side, that Patrick red kit will forever be tattooed in their memory. It was the season that made Gil Vicente, finally, an iconic first division club, a legacy that has survived to this day.