New book explains how Don Revie and Leeds United played a role in the football kit revolution — YEP 25/4/24
In this extract from Admiral: 50 Years of the Replica Shirt, contributor Rob Bagchi tells of Don Revie’s Leeds United revamp – with a little help from the away kit.
By Rob Bagchi
As spring crawled towards summer in 1973, Leeds United were
finished. At Second Division Sunderland's homecoming after beating Don Revie's
side in the FA Cup final, six of their supporters carried a coffin on to the
Roker Park pitch with 'Leeds died 1973' crowingly daubed on the side.
The remains of Europe's most consistently strong side over
the past nine years were laid to rest in the centre-circle. A few days later
Leeds were swizzed out of the Cup Winners' Cup by a refereeing performance of
such baroque partiality in the final against AC Milan that it seemed to
symbolise the nadir of all the lousy luck they had endured over the preceding
decade.
At the start of the following season, Revie had rallied his
players to summon their defiance. "You lads are good enough to ram the
criticism back down the throats of all those who have denied you the respect
you deserve," he told them.
"You must go out to show them all what you can do, what
good footballers you are. I want the title. I think you're more than good
enough to do that. I also think you could go through the season without
losing."
This quest for an invincible year did not last, but they set
a record of 29 games unbeaten. They would also, unwittingly, change football
beyond recognition.
Admiral Sports' managing director John Griffin's meeting
with Don Revie in October 1973 was pure happenstance. The Leicester-based firm
had been attempting to get their range into Kay's Catalogue and had driven to
its Holbeck HQ for an early morning meeting.
The mail order giant rejected their pitch in less than an
hour and they went to console themselves in Sheila's Café on Elland Road before
heading home.
As they ate in the venerable establishment named for and run
by Terry Yorath's mother-in-law, the Leeds United squad, who had started the
season with seven successive victories and were still undefeated at the top of
the table in the autumn, climbed the concrete steps from the West Stand car
park through the wire and on to Fullerton Park for a training session.
Griffin, intrigued, went over to watch and approached Revie
afterwards to introduce himself.
He could not have picked a more amenable top-flight manager.
Within weeks of taking the job Don had ditched more than 40 years of tradition
to change the colour of the kit, had riffled through club crests and was now
sending his team out with the modernist, egg yolk 'smiley badge', occasionally,
the eagle-eyed noted, attached upside-down.
Little wonder, then, that he was receptive to Griffin's off
the cuff proposal to make Leeds a new strip and actually pay them to wear it.
Revie told him the home kit was sacrosanct, but Admiral could do what it liked
with the away strip and tracksuits and Griffin shook hands on a £7,000 fee for
the club. He knew his company could copyright the new design and become the
sole legal source of replica kits.
Naturally parents, induced by its exclusiveness and their
children's desire for the genuine article, would strive to purchase the
legitimate one and trade up from the standard version of the past. Admiral had
cottoned on to the appeal of individuality.
The first Admiral kits were in the same colours as the ones
they replaced: plain white for home and yellow for away, the stiffer nylon of
the change-strip shorts a more vibrant custard shade than the lemon of the
shirts.
By December 22, when Leeds had stretched their unbeaten run
to 21 matches by beating Norwich 1-0, Admiral's top brass were guests in the
directors' box at Elland Road and their shirts, with the logo based on the
Royal Navy gold braid insignia, were flying off the shelves. And not just in
West Yorkshire, but throughout the country. If your child wanted a shirt 'just
like the players wore', the runaway Division One leaders were the only choice.
On March 30, they made the trip to West Ham and, although
Leeds lost 3-1, their third consecutive defeat, the match stands out for the
first appearance of Admiral's classic away kit. For the first few weeks of
their deal, preoccupied naturally by Christmas, they had stuck to basic,
primary colours.
Now, with three months to work on the project, Admiral
produced a yellow kit with blue and white stripes down the sleeves, the sides
of the shorts and hooped around the tops of the socks. At last, something truly
unique.
The Daily Telegraph would sneer about 'hot piping, redolent
of Ruritanian bandsmen' but it was a huge hit in the replica market and Admiral
sold tens of thousands over the seven years they maintained the core elements
of its design.
Leeds won the title, sitting at home, with a match to spare
when Arsenal won at Anfield on April 24, the same night Revie's This Is Your
Life was broadcast on ITV. “I feel as though someone has come along and lifted
six tons of coal off my back,” the manager said.
They had never been hip, and to their critics' eyes never
would be. Revie, with his mohair suits, side-parting, sideburns creeping
towards his earlobes and what Arthur Hopcraft memorably called his “outdoors
face as if he lives permanently in a keen wind”, was forced to grow up far too
young on the loss of his mother to cancer when he was 12.
It made him cautious and conservative about appearance and
etiquette. But in his link-up with Admiral, once again he proved himself a
pioneer with an enterprising sense as keen as the company's. Leeds United were
the first of the modern, truly commercial English football clubs.
Written off in the summer, they finished the following
spring more stylish and formidable than ever. Dead and buried? Yesterday's men?
They settled instead for “the greatest in the land”.
Admiral: 50 Years of the Replica Shirt – which celebrates
shirts including Leeds United's pioneering away strip and their Premier League
kit of 1992 – is available for pre-order now from:
admiralsports.com/products/50-years-of-replica-admiral-book
Yorkshire Evening Post Saturday 2/6/1973