Colour in the Real Oviedo logo for free

About this drawing

Few sports stories beat the rescue behind the Real Oviedo crest, a badge that nearly disappeared. The club was created in 1926 when two teams merged in Oviedo, the capital of Asturias in northern Spain. It did well early on, finishing among the top sides in the national league during the 1930s.

Decades later, the money ran out. In 2003 debts sent the team plunging to the lower levels of Spanish soccer, and it looked as if the club would fold. Picture a historic pro franchise suddenly playing on tiny community fields. Fans kept showing up anyway, filling small grounds and following the team on the road.

The turning point came in 2012, when a share sale became a worldwide campaign. Thousands of people in many countries bought a small piece of the club, and plenty of them had never set foot in Spain. That crowdfunded lifeline kept Oviedo alive, and the story still gets told whenever people talk about what supporters can do. The blue and white emblem also carries a piece of local history. Its cross recalls the Cross of the Angels, a jeweled treasure from the medieval Kingdom of Asturias that is kept in the city's cathedral and appears on Oviedo's coat of arms. Few logos on a jersey can claim roots going back that far.

• soccer
• team crests
• spain
• asturias