Galatasaray Spor Kulübü (Turkish pronunciation: [ɡaɫatasaˈɾaj ˈspoɾ kulyˈby], Galatasaray Sports Club), more commonly referred to as simply Galatasaray and familiarly as Cimbom, is a Turkish sports club based on the European side of the city of Istanbul including basketball, wheelchair basketball, volleyball, water polo, handball, athletics, swimming, rowing, sailing, judo, bridge, motorsport, equestrian,[1][2] esports, and chess.

[19] Galatasaray (Turkish pronunciation: [ɡaɫatasaˈɾaj]) is a quarter in Karaköy in the Beyoğlu district of Istanbul, located at the northern shore of the Golden Horn.

Galatasaray SK was founded in October 1905 (the exact day is disputed, but is traditionally accepted as "17 Teşrinievvel 1321[22][non-primary source needed]" according to the Islamic Rumi calendar, which corresponds to 30 October 1905 (according to the Gregorian calendar) by Ali Sami Yen and other students of Galatasaray High School (a high school in Istanbul which was established in 1481) as a football club.

Ali Sami Yen, who became Galatasaray SK's first president and was given the club's membership number "1", was the son of Şemseddin Sami (Frashëri), an Ottoman writer, philosopher, and playwright of ethnic Albanian origin, and a prominent figure of the Rilindja Kombëtare, the National Renaissance movement of Albania.

In that match, Galatasaray won 2–0 over Rûm club and the spectators called them "Galata Sarayı Efendileri" (in English: Gentlemen of Galata (City) Palace), and after this event, they adopted that name and started to call their club "GalataSaray".

[26] Our aim is to play together like Englishmen, to have a color and a name, and to beat the non-Turkish teams.Along with the founder Ali Sami Yen, the co-founders were the ones who were keen to do this sport, such as Asim Tevfik Sonumut, Reşat Şirvani, Cevdet Kalpakçıoğlu, Abidin Daver and Kamil.

Ali Sami Yen stated, "We were imagining brightness of yellow – red fire over our team and thinking that it would carry us from one victory to another.

[29] Galatasaray wore red and white colours when founded, then played in yellow and black during the 1907–1908 season.

Ali Sami Yen, the main founder of Galatasaray, wrote the following in his diaries: "Our goalkeeper Asım Tevfik, left-forwarder Emin Bülent and right midfielder Ali Sami Yen were commissioned for the task of determining the new team colours.

After we had been in and out of several shops, we saw two different elegant-looking wool materials in Fat Yanko's store at Bahçekapısı (between Eminönü and Sirkeci in Istanbul, now called Bahçekapı).

When the sales clerk made the two fabrics fly together with a twist of his hand they became so bright that it reminded us of the beauty of a goldfinch.

The red and yellow colours were also inspired from the roses which Gül Baba offered to Sultan Bayezid II.

[35] It was named after the founder of the club, Ali Sami Yen and was in the Mecidiyeköy quarter of the Şişli district at the center of the city.

Due to improvements in security and prohibition of standing spectators, it had an all-seater capacity of 24,990 and was nicknamed "Hell".

But the Ali Sami Yen Stadium had historic importance for Galatasaray fans although it was smaller and older.