 The club colours are a claret shirt with sky blue sleeves , white shorts with claret and blue trim , and sky blue socks with claret and white trim . They were the original <unk> of the claret and blue . Villa 's colours at the outset generally comprised plain shirts ( white , grey or a shade of blue ) , with either white or black shorts . For a few years after that ( 1877 – 79 ) the team wore several different kits from all white , blue and black , red and blue to plain green . By 1880 , black jerseys with a red lion embroidered on the chest were introduced by William McGregor . This remained the first choice strip for six years . On Monday , 8 November 1886 , an entry in the club 's official minute book states : 
