AFC Ajax Pay Tribute to Bob Marley via the adidas Samba ‘Three Little Birds’
Dutch football team AFC Ajax have released a new colourway in conjunction with kit sponsors , paying tribute to Bob Marley, whose song ‘Three Little Birds’ has been embraced as the Ajax fan chant for over a decade.
The adidas Samba is a perfect choice for this release, given its deep ties to the sport of football and ease of colour-blocking, which sees the Rastafari stripes of green, yellow and red atop a black leather upper. This reggae connection becomes deeper with a pictorial representation of ‘Three Little Birds’ sitting atop the three St. Andrew’s Crosses of Amsterdam, the home base of AFC Ajax. Furthermore, the Ajax team crest replaces the Trefoil on the tongue. The execution is finished with a standard brown gum rubber cupsole.
So what’s the connection between Ajax and Bob Marley, and why did the team and their fans embrace ‘Three Little Birds’ as their anthem? According to the official Bob Marley website, Cardiff City announcer Ali Yassine played the song to Ajax fans following a tied match, to which a rousing chorus of spectators sang along. It stuck with them, eventually becoming a fixture of Ajax matches to the point that Marley’s son Ky-Mani went to Amsterdam in 2021 to sing his father’s song in front of the home crowd. Furthermore, Bob Marley himself was a noted fan of football, and archival photos depict him displaying impressive tekkers in adi boots. Great story.
The Ajax x adidas Samba ‘Three Little Birds’ is available now directly from adidas.