Links With The Past: UEFA Europa Conference League Gifts
The gift from Rennes was this ceramic stoat, or ermine, in its white winter coat, from which ermine fur is derived. Rennes is the capital of Brittany and its football club has associated itself with the white stoat because two of them feature in the heraldic device on the Brittany coat of arms.
The pennants presented to Leicester City by Rennes before the UEFA Europa Conference League ties in March 2022 also reference white stoats. The design of the crest on the pennants is a simplified version, dating from 2003, of the logo that Rennes introduced in 1972 to replace two earlier logos.
In the centre are two white stoats, or ermines, facing each other. They are holding a football between them, represented by a solid white circle. They are placed inside an octagon, which was introduced to the design in 1997.
The left red part of the octagon is placed over the black half of the shield and the black one is placed over the red. The date 1901, under the lettering ‘Stade Rennais FC’ refers to the date the club was founded, reminding us that it is one of the oldest clubs in France.
The Leicester City crest on the Rennes pennant is the version used by the Club between 1992 and 2009, rather than the current crest.
The Rennes crest also appears on their players’ shirts. The red shirt illustrated here was prepared for the Moroccan defender Nayef Aguerd for the first leg of the Round of 16 tie in Rennes. In the return leg in Leicester, Rennes wore white shirts.
In the quarter-finals of the UEFA Europa Conference League, Leicester City defeated PSV Eindhoven. The Dutch club was founded in 1913 for the employees of the internationally-famous electrical goods company Philips, which was founded in Eindhoven in 1891.
The crest on the pennant (top picture) they presented to Kasper Schmeichel at kick-off carries the letters PSV, which stand for Philips Sport Vereeniging, or Philips Sport Association.
Until 1955, the PSV logo consisted of a circle in which a light bulb was incorporated. This was then changed into an oval shape, encircling the letters PSV written on a flag. In 2014, the text ‘EST 1913’ was added at the bottom of the gold oval encircling the flag.
This refers to the year of the club’s foundation and was introduced in the season of PSV’s centenary.
The shirts worn by the PSV team in both ties carry the name ‘Brainport Eindhoven’, where complex, high-tech machines and systems are developed. The shirt illustrated above, now in the Club’s collection, was prepared for the French defender Olivier Boscagli.