Football posters with club mottos: the words that survive every season

Players switch clubs. Managers get fired. Stadiums are demolished and rebuilt under new sponsor names. What remains are a few words sung by tens of thousands of people at once, and which mean more than the league position.

A club motto is a strange kind of text. It is rarely written to be a motto. Often it is a song title, a terrace chant, or a sentence from a speech that happened to stick. Yet it encapsulates an entire self-image. That is why it also works unusually well as an image. Three or four words in the club's colors are enough for those in the know to understand everything.

Here is the story behind eleven of them.

The songs that became identity

Several of football's most famous phrases come from music, and sometimes from unexpected sources.

You'll Never Walk Alone, Liverpool

The song was written for the Broadway musical Carousel in 1945. Eighteen years later, the Liverpool band Gerry and the Pacemakers recorded it and reached the top of the British charts. At Anfield, the week's chart-toppers were played over the speakers before kick-off, and the crowd at The Kop sang along. When the song fell off the charts, they kept on singing.

Today, the words stand above the Shankly Gates and in the club badge. Few phrases in the world of sports carry such gravity. It has been sung in triumph, but it has also been sung in grief, and that is likely why it endures.

The You'll Never Walk Alone poster lets the text stand in yellow against deep red. It is the same color pair as in the club badge.

Blue Moon, Manchester City

Here is a detail that is easy to miss. Blue Moon was written in 1934 by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. That same Rodgers composed the music for Carousel. Two of English football's most sung anthems thus have the same composer, an American who never wrote a line about football.

City supporters began singing it toward the end of the 1980s. It was a melancholic ballad about loneliness, chosen by fans for a team that mostly lost back then. That self-irony remains part of the club's culture today, even if the results have changed.

Blue Moon is the brightest in the series. Sky blue and white, nothing more.

Blue Is the Colour, Chelsea

In the winter of 1972, Chelsea's players went into a studio and recorded a single ahead of the League Cup final. They lost the final. The song still climbed to the top five on the British charts and is still played at Stamford Bridge.

The title is almost comically simple. It just says what color the team is. But that is exactly what makes it a perfect poster word. Blue Is the Colour describes itself: a blue picture about how blue is the color.

Glory Glory Man United, Manchester United

The melody is significantly older than the club. It comes from the 19th-century American hymn known in English as The Battle Hymn of the Republic. Several English clubs have borrowed it over the years, among them Tottenham as early as the 1960s. United's version was recorded ahead of the 1983 FA Cup final and has belonged to Old Trafford ever since.

On the Glory Glory Man United poster, the text is in cream-white against red. The warm white tone does a lot. It gives the image a sense of an old match program rather than a new advertisement.

North London Forever, Arsenal

The youngest phrase in the collection. Louis Dunford grew up in Islington and in 2022 released a song about his neighborhood. It was about growing up and feeling at home more than about football. Arsenal supporters adopted it within a few weeks, and soon it was being played before kick-off at the Emirates.

It is rare to see an anthem born in real-time. Most club songs are older than those who sing them. North London Forever shows that traditions can still arise, if the words hit home.

The mottos: a sentence as a mission statement

Other mottos are not songs but stances. They say something about how the club wants to see itself.

Més que un club, FC Barcelona

"More than a club." The words are usually attributed to Narcís de Carreras, who used them when he took office as club president in 1968. During the Franco dictatorship, Barcelona's arena was one of the few places where Catalan could be spoken openly by many at once. The sentence described something everyone already knew.

Today it is written above the stands at Camp Nou. The poster with FC Barcelona's motto gathers the club's colors in one place: blue and garnet from the jersey, yellow and red from the Catalan flag.

Mia san mia, Bayern München

Bavarian dialect for "we are we." The expression is older than the club and has been used in both military and political contexts in Bavaria. At FC Bayern, it has become a formula for self-confidence, often interpreted by opponents as arrogance. The club has itself formulated what it is meant to mean and sews the words into the collar of the match jersey.

The strange thing about the phrase is that it explains nothing. It only refers to itself. Mia san mia in white against red therefore becomes almost abstract for those who do not know the dialect, and self-evident for those who do.

Fino alla fine, Juventus

"Until the end." Three words about never stopping playing until the referee blows the whistle. Juventus has worn them on their jerseys since the 2010s, but the stance is older than that in a club that has long defined itself through endurance.

Fino alla fine is the most restrained motif in the series. Black, white, and a ball with touches of gold. Juventus has always had the sleekest palette in European football, and it works well even outside of a supporter's room.

To Dare Is To Do, Tottenham

The Latin original reads Audere est facere. To dare is to do. The club got its name from Sir Henry Percy, the medieval knight who was called Harry Hotspur for his impatience in battle. The motto fits into the same narrative.

Of the eleven, this is the phrase that fares best without football. To Dare Is To Do in navy blue against white could just as easily hang above a desk as a reminder to oneself.

The terrace chants: when the city speaks

The final two belong in the crowd rather than the boardroom.

Ici c'est Paris, Paris Saint-Germain

"This is Paris." The chant grew on the terraces at Parc des Princes and was the fans' long before the club began using it in its own communications. Who actually owns the words has been an inflamed issue between fans and the club.

The phrase is a marking of place. It does not say that the team is the best, only that one is on its ground. Ici c'est Paris bears the colors of the city and the club at once, because they are the same.

Hala Madrid y nada más, Real Madrid

"Hala Madrid" has been chanted for over a hundred years. The addition "y nada más," and nothing else, came with the anthem written for the club's tenth European Cup title in 2014. It was recorded by the squad and quickly became the song that ends big nights at the Bernabéu.

There is a confidence in the last three words that is typical of the club. Hala Madrid y nada más sticks to white, navy blue, and gold. Nothing more is needed.

Why does a motto work as an image?

Typographic posters usually rely on the phrasing. A quote must be good enough to read every day. Club mottos have an advantage there. They have already been polished by decades on the terrace. Everything superfluous has been sung away.

Then there is the color. A football club has one of the most consistent visual identities in existence. Liverpool's red and City's sky blue have looked the same for generations. This means that the image can be very simple. Text, a color field, and a ball in motion are enough.

The series is designed by Andreas Magnusson and maintains the same approach throughout all eleven motifs. This makes them readable as a collection. It also shows how similar and different the clubs are. Four red, five blue, and then Juventus and Tottenham going their own way.

How to think about the wall

A supporter motif doesn't have to end up in a boy's room. A few things to consider:

• Let the color guide the placement. The white motifs from Real Madrid and Tottenham are calm and work in bright rooms. The red ones take up more space and benefit from having their own wall.
• Mix with other things. A typographic poster next to a photograph or a city map from the club's home city becomes more personal than a whole wall with the same theme.
• Choose a frame based on the palette. A black frame sharpens the dark blue and red motifs. Oak warms up the white ones.
• Think about who will be reading it. A motto in Catalan or Bavarian becomes a question for those who don't recognize it, and an answer for those who do.

The motifs are printed as giclée on matte Fine Art paper. The matte surface is a point in itself here, because large single-colored fields easily get reflections on glossier paper.

Frequently asked questions about club mottos

Which football club has the motto "More than a club"?
FC Barcelona. In Catalan, it is Més que un club and it has been used since the late 1960s.

What does Mia san mia mean?
It is Bavarian dialect and means "we are we." FC Bayern München uses it as an expression of the club's self-image and cohesion.

Where does You'll Never Walk Alone come from?
From the 1945 musical Carousel. Liverpool supporters picked up the song in 1963 after Gerry and the Pacemakers made it a hit.

What does Fino alla fine mean?
"Until the end" in Italian. It is the motto of Juventus.

What does Hala Madrid y nada más mean?
Approximately "Go Madrid and nothing else." It is the title of Real Madrid's 2014 anthem.