A familiar feathered friend has returned to adorn the Bristol City home strip for the first time in a quarter of a century.
City unveiled their new club crest and home kit during a fans event at The Robins pub - a stone's throw from Ashton Gate - this evening (March 26).
The contemporary design comprises the robin for the first time since 1994. Synonymous with the club's red shirt and white shorts, the outline of the bird features on the badge with its breast filled in red as it perches on a football.
Bristol City's inaugural year, 1894, is stitched alongside the robin with the club's name embroidered in white on a red ring around them.
Marlon Pack, Adam Webster, Korey Smith and Antoine Semenyo were among eight first team players modelling the new design while Lee Johnson and Jon Lansdown were in attendance.
The players chatted openly with fans at the pub, with Pack and Webster holding court at the bar.
City contacted fans in November via email asking for their views on what the new crest should incorporate and what supporters most commonly associate with Bristol City.
Two new badges were unveiled at Tuesday's event, one that will be embroidered on training gear and one that will go on matchday and replica shirts.
A statement from the club read: "Our current crest has served us well, but with renewed ambition and desire to be progressive and forward thinking both on and off the pitch, we feel it is time to create a strong, new identity of our own."
Transfer blow for Bristol City, Celtic and Rangers as Chelsea want to 'keep hold of their players'
The 1949/50 season was the first time the robin had appeared on Bristol City's shirts, before the club reverted back to the Bristol coat of arms in 1969 only to then return to the robin seven years later.
That endured on the crest until 1994 when it was replaced again by the city's coat of arms but that never resonated fully with fans who considered it too generic and corporate, lacking the true identity and character of the club.
A campaign entitled 'Brick Back the Robin' was started three years ago via the Section 82 fans group, who still use the bird on all their unofficial merchandise due to the historical significance and nostalgia element of the image.
This season's black and white third kit did feature a retro, 1980s-themed badge of a red-breasted robin perched on a football with the Clifton Suspension Bridge in the background and proved popular among fans.
Last month vice chairman Jon Lansdown updated fans saying that the process was almost complete.
"We’re reaching the final design stages," said vice-chairman Lansdown."It won’t go out to fans [again] now but we’ve already done that and it’s had a lot of feedback.
"That’s helped shape that it will have a redesigned robin and that the club was founded when it was and that will appear on it."
