A journey into an Aladdin’s cave of football kit history
THIS may well be the real-life version of Willy Wonka’s factory. Only there are no Oompa Loompas.
We are deep in Adidas’ sprawling headquarters in rural Bavaria for a tour with a difference during Newcastle United’s training camp.
A group of us have been led to a small, fairly nondescript office and ushered to a locked door at the back of the room that would otherwise blend into the blue wall but for the handle.
You would not know it, but 40,000 Adidas items are kept inside this treasure trove, including kits, boots, balls, bags, trainers and even old shoeboxes.
Just like the players’ visit, when Sandro Tonali, Lloyd Kelly, Emil Krafth and Lewis Hall were among
those who tagged along, the numbers on the tour are limited.
It is quickly apparent why a dozen sweaty journalists would not be welcome at once as we walk into a 2,700 square-foot fridge where the temperature and humidity are regulated.
The display of World Cup final balls in sight are a giveaway about what lies hidden away around the corner, but, otherwise, this is what you would picture an archive in a museum to look like. We have even been given a pair of white cotton gloves.
Grey and white are the dominant colours and everything has been carefully catalogued, stored and photographed for record, which can take several hours just for a single product.
Shirts are hung up in fire-resistant covers bags to protect them from dust and colour migration while some of the most iconic boots of alltime are tucked away in acid-free boxes, which are stacked in such a way to protect against fire or water damage in towering vaults.
The colour comes out not only when the item is picked out but when the story behind it is told by our guide, Adidas historian Sandra
Trapp. Take the boots, for instance.
We are shown the remarkable contrast in footwear during the 1954 World Cup final, the so-called Miracle of Bern, when West Germany shocked heavy favourites Hungary.
West Germany’s boots were lighter – a mixture of leather and synthetics – and did not have a toe
cap or a wide sole. Most importantly, they had a new phenomenon – removable studs – which were sorely needed in heavy rain. Having lost 8-3 against Hungary in the group stages, West Germany won the final 3-2.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. We get to hold the left boot Geoff Hurst wore when the England legend scored a hat-trick in the 1966 World Cup final, which was bronze plated by Adidas following the match.
We are shown a pair of unreleased prototypes from the 1970s with strips of material that feel like Velcro; it turns out it’s shark skin.
A pair of Bruno Guimaraes’ signed boots from the previous Olympics have even been dug out and we learn that the Newcastle midfielder personally handed them over after winning gold in 2021.
Yet there are one or two untold stories, too. The staff have hung up a select number of Newcastle shirts and this is the aisle where we unsurprisingly spend the most amount of time on the tour to the amusement of our guide. “It’s like Disney time,” Trapp smiled.
There are a series of familiar sights from the club’s original partnership, including the away kit with the huge orange and green sash from 199798, the blue NTL change strip from a few years later and the black goalkeeper top with orange fade that Shay Given went on to wear in the Champions League.
However, it is a string of unfamiliar shirts that immediately catch the eye.
I’ve never seen them before and I’m not alone in that. These are kits that never made it into shops, including a red and white number from the Brown Ale era, which may well have proved one of the club’s most divisive kits in history given the colour scheme, and a blue and yellow shirt that looks very similar to the one that got the nod in 1998-99, but with yellow down the sides rather than blue.
The most intriguing kits, though, are from a decade-and-a-half ago, including a striking home shirt with a black grandad collar, jagged-like stripes and a gold trim on the sleeves. Alongside it is an away shirt that is a throwback to Newcastle’s iconic change strip from the 1995-96 season with a cream grandad collar and thin, horizontal burgundy and blue stripes.
Next in line is a vivid blue shirt with orange detail. It even has the Northern Rock sponsor plastered across the front, which gives you an indication of how far along it was in the process, but this was one of the aforementioned prototypes that ultimately never saw the light of day.
Were these kits spurned in favour of the ones Newcastle actually wore in 2009-11? Or were these some of the samples put together before the partnership ended given the level of research and planning that goes into strips, which are worked on up to two years in advance? After all, Inigo Turner, the design director at Adidas, had already started designing a new set.
“I wouldn’t say they were crazier, but they definitely went in another direction again,” he previously told the Journal before Newcastle and Adidas got back together. “It was a bit of a shame because I felt we were developing nicely with Newcastle and, then, unfortunately, it wasn’t continued but who knows what happens in the future?”
Who knows, indeed. Now this living, breathing catalogue is inspiring designers working on the Newcastle kits of the future.