Football on Film: Gregory's Girl

In 1981, one of the greatest films in Scottish movie history was released. Gregory's Girl was a story that could have been about any one of us; a tale of growing up, going to school, playing football and falling in love with someone without ever fully knowing how important any of it was.

Written and directed by Bill Forsyth and starring John Gordon Sinclair as Gregory Underwood, the film brings to mind memories of younger days, our insecurities and inexperience, of living life in the moment and understanding who we are as individuals. And if none of that struck a chord, there were also the sequences where football played a strong part.

If a discussion about football nostalgia appeals to you more than Dee Hepburn or Claire Grogan, you've come to the right place (although decency and integrity prohibits us from having an online vote about which of the two female stars you liked best).

Gregory's Girl is littered with football references and imagery, so if you needed a reminder of where the memories lie, here's a brief selection.

1. School football

Shortly after the opening sequence, we're taken to a secondary school in the Scottish new town of Cumbernauld. There we see a number of football matches taking place involving school children wearing kits of many colours.

They look basic and a little old-fashioned for 1981, but that's how it often was back then. Hands up who played for their school football team in a kit that seemed older than they were? Yeah, me too...

2. Partick Thistle #1

If any one football club had a bigger influence on this film than any other, it was Partick Thistle. Dee Hepburn honed her football-playing skills at the Firhill club before filming began, and here we see them represented in the form of a couple of players wearing Partick's kit from the 1975-76 season.

In the foreground, we get our first sight of Gregory himself, wearing a natty Umbro shirt in blue that, to the best of anyone's knowledge, didn't belong to any particular league club at the time. Judging by the styling, however, it was a new piece of Umbro teamwear at the time, unlike the yellow Umbro goalkeeper top worn by Rab Buchanan who played the part of Andy.

3. Balls

Gregory turns out to be anything but the hotshot goalscorer his team coach, Mr Menzies, had in mind, so a series of trials are organised to find someone more suitable.

Back out on the gravel training pitches in the school grounds, a number of willing (and not-so-willing) participants are put through their paces. Each of them has a Mitre football that looks more designed for the rough playing surface beneath their feet rather than the luxurious turf of Hampden Park, but there again we see the harsh realities of school football.

Actually, come to think of it, those footballs look familiar. Where have we seen those before?

4. Kits of all kinds

The boys that are lined up for action are wearing a colourful array of shirts, some basic and some altogether more in tune with modern football.

In the picture on the left, you can see someone wearing the same sort of yellow top that would have been worn by Alan Rough while playing in goal for Scotland around the same time. Ironically, Rough played his club football for Partick Thistle when the film was made.

At the other end of the desirability scale, we see the kid on the right wearing what seems to be a cheap imitation of a Barcelona shirt.

Note the Umbro diamond logo on the yellow shirt, though. Spotting a theme developing here?

5. Umbro again

Yes, there's more Umbro apparel to marvel at, this time in the form of a tracksuit worn by Dorothy (Dee Hepburn).

Arriving late for the trial, she's convinced she's better than most of the boys and demands a place alongside them. After a lengthy discussion with Menzies (Jake D'Arcy), she finally persuades him to see sense and before long is dribbling the ball around the training cones with all the easy grace of Kenny Dalglish in his prime.

As for that tracksuit, what else can we say except 'Bella bella'?

6. Teamwear-a-go-go

The pale blue shirt we saw being worn by John Gordon Sinclair earlier looked distinctly Manchester City-esque. It'd be nice to think this was once worn by the likes of Paul Power or Kazimierz Deyna, but clearly it wasn't.

More believable, perhaps, is the other Umbro kit that crops up in the film which looks a dead ringer for a Manchester City away kit from the same era. Sadly, this isn't true either, but it looks pretty good all the same - even with those old Partick Thistle socks.

7. Umbro yellow

While Dorothy struts her stuff in Gregory's old outfield position, Gregory himself ends up in goal and clearly he's not up to the standard of the fella we saw earlier. It's a plain yellow goalie top this time (like Andy's earlier) - no Scotland badge and no Umbro diamonds down the sleeves... but there is the ever-present diamond logo in its usual top-left position.

Also worth noting are the cheapo goalie gloves further underlining Gregory's lowly status between the sticks. It's probably a fair bet that those green patches are made of plastic and are consequently of no use to man nor beast. (See also 'Catalogue of Eras'.)

8. Not Dundee

Later in the film, Dorothy, ever conscientious about improving her footballing technique, asks Gregory to help her out with a lunchtime training session.

Forced into goal to provide the most minimal of opposition, he this time wears a short-sleeved Umbro shirt (what else?) in navy blue with white sleeves and red trim.

On first sight, I thought this modern-looking shirt might have been worn once by Dundee, but clearly my imagination was playing tricks on me. The Dees never wore this shirt, but maybe another team did? If you know, drop me a line.

Looks nice though, doesn't it?

9. Do the Tango

If you're going to pick the ball out of the net with as much regularity as Gregory, you might as well make it a good one, and Dorothy clearly knows good balls when she sees them. That's why she's gone for one of the all-time classics - an Adidas Tango.

That's right, you read that correctly... That's Adidas, not Umbro.

And what a fine ball it was. Introduced in time for the 1978 World Cup as the Adidas Tango River Plate, it was well established when Gregory's Girl was released and would be seen in reinvented form at countless World Cups thereafter. Mind you, the one Dee Hepburn's holding is probably a cheap version, but even so...

10. Partick Thistle #2

And so to the final football reference of the film which provides one last mention of Partick Thistle Football Club (well, almost).

Here we see Gregory making some noise on his drum kit, releasing some pent-up nerves ahead of a date with the object of his affections, Dorothy. Standing in the doorway to his bedroom is Madeleine (never Maddy), his younger sister, who's on hand once again to dispense some much-needed wisdom about the opposite sex.

Pinned on the wall behind Gregory, we see a Partick Thistle scarf, confirming the identity of the other love in his life - his favourite football club, located 14 miles away in Glasgow.

From here until the end of the film, football takes a back seat as Gregory attempts to woo the girl of his dreams. For those of you that haven't seen the movie, I won't spoil things by telling you whether he gets his girl or not. Instead, lets take solace from the closing credits which confirm that Partick Thistle Football Club and Umbro International were both integral to the making of the film, and that the named 'Football Coach' was Donnie McKinnon, one-time Partick Thistle captain.

And that's Gregory's Girl. A fine British movie, and one that's now available to buy on DVD and Blu-Ray via Amazon.co.uk. Buy it and enjoy it (especially if you like a bit of football nostalgia).

-- Chris Oakley

All images featured on this post copyright their original owners and used for the purposes of review and illustration. No attempt at superseding original copyright has been made or should be inferred.

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Football kit manufacturers: Trends, graphs and charts

As you probably know, we're rather fond of football kit design here at The Football Attic. We like nothing better than making broad sweeping statements about the brilliance of a particular kit, especially when we know we haven't got a clue what we're talking about.

What makes football kit design such a fascinating subject is the sheer number of great designs that have been produced over so many decades. In England, this began in earnest during the mid-1970's when production techniques improved and a burgeoning sense of commercialism finally dawned.

So many great manufacturers are associated with the football kits of English football - Adidas, Nike, Admiral, Umbro... the list goes on, but we wondered which ones have provided the most kits for top flight teams since the mid-1970's, and what the trends have been in the popularity of those manufacturers.

To find out the answers to these and many other questions, we plundered as much information as we could find from the website that's unparalleled in its knowledge of the subject, Historical Football Kits. Our research threw up a number of interesting findings.

The early days: 1974-1980

It's fair to say that before the 1970's, football kits were made to distinguish the colours of one team from another and very little else. Football kits were looked upon as 'equipment' rather than fashion items, but that was all to change.

That change has often been attributed to the Leicester-based firm of Admiral, and it's not hard to see why. In 1975, the classic 'tramlines' design arrived to bemuse and amaze the fans of Coventry City, Dundee and Wales, and by 1976 their logo seemed to be cropping up everywhere. They weren't, however, the domineering force in the English First Division.

Where our story begins in the 1974/75 season, it was Umbro that had the lion's share of all the top team's contracts, providing kit for eight of the 22 clubs. By the end of that campaign, the number had increased to nine because QPR had switched allegiance from Admiral in late January.

First Division 1974/75: Kit manufacturers
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Details of the kit manufacturers providing First Division kits are somewhat sketchy for 1974/75. More than half the club's suppliers are unknown, but we do know that Admiral only had three top clubs on their books at the end of that season - Stoke City, Luton Town and Leeds United. By the end of the decade, this figure had doubled, but Umbro were also adding more clubs to its portfolio. During the 1976/77 season, they provided the kit for 13 of the 22 teams including the top four - Liverpool, Manchester City, Ipswich Town and Aston Villa.

Queens Park Rangers 1976/77

It was in this season that Adidas made their First Division début well after their logo had appeared on shirts during the 1974 World Cup. Queens Park Rangers have the distinction of wearing the first Adidas kit in the top division and indeed they were the only club that did so at the time, but in 1977/78 another four teams wore the German marque - Middlesbrough, Birmingham City, Ipswich Town and Nottingham Forest.

In the period between 1974 and 1980, the only other companies providing kit for First Division teams were Bukta and Le Coq Sportif, but they were struggling to make much of an impact during this time. Bukta, based in Manchester, were the suppliers of team kit for Newcastle United during much of the 1970s and also had their logo on West Ham's kit during the 1975 FA Cup Final. As for French firm Le Coq Sportif, their arrival in the First Division didn't come until the 1978/79 season when they provided the kit for Derby County. Tottenham and Aston Villa would soon follow suit when the 1980's finally arrived.

A sign of things to come: 1980-1989

In the latter half of the 1970's, only five companies had made football kits for England's First Divison teams. In the decade that followed, that number had increased to 14 but be in no doubt - Adidas and Umbro were far and away the main players. Admiral's star was on the wane and as new names like Hummel and Patrick began to get some traction, a few 'club brands' started to appear on the radar too.

Between the two of them, Umbro and Adidas provided the kit for 18 of the 22 First Division teams in the 1980/81 season. Only Coventry City and Leeds United (Admiral), Southampton (Patrick) and Tottenham Hotspur (Le Coq Sportif) bucked the trend, but as the 1980's progressed, more and more clubs were tempted to try alternative suppliers.

First Division: 1980-89 - Umbro & Adidas v The Rest
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Coventry City, in particular, adopted a different approach when they ditched the Admiral tramlines in 1981. Their famous 'Talbot' kit was the product of a company called Talbot Sports, and in the 1986/87 season they fashioned their own supply deal again by plumping for kits made by Triple S Sports. As luck would have it, the striped Coventry home kit ended up being worn during a successful 1987 FA Cup Final against Tottenham, but it was a one-season wonder and was replaced for 1987/88 by new strips made by Hummel.

Danish company Hummel had started making First Division in-roads after some useful exposure during Euro '84. Their clean, distinctive, Arsenal-style shirt had been worn by the Danes right through to their exit in the semi-finals of the competition, and it was in the following season of 1984/85 that Norwich City became the first club wear the famous double chevrons. By the end of the decade, they'd be joined by Southampton, Aston Villa, Tottenham and, of course, Coventry.

First Division 1980/81 - 1988-89: Kit manufacturers per season
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The arrival of lesser-known names like Henson, Scoreline, Strike and Spall in the late-80's was a portent of things to come. Adidas and Umbro's combined share of all the First Division kit deals was down to just 50% in 1988/89, and in the 1990's things got even worse for them as the race to supply outfits for the top clubs got even hotter.

Diversity: 1990-1999

Taken as a whole, the final decade of the 20th Century saw Adidas almost disappear from the English First Division football kit landscape. Having supplied outfits for as many as seven or eight of the 22 top-flight clubs during some seasons of the 1980's, they were down to just one team - Liverpool - in 1994/95. On two occasions later in the decade, only Newcastle United were on the German company's books.

This surprising fall from grace can perhaps be attributed to the growing prominence of the Champions League as Adidas' main priority and the need to have its kits on show there. The increase in football kit manufacturers in the UK was also growing - 27 used during the 1990's - but initially at least, Umbro didn't seem affected by either issue. Between 1990 and 1993, they were making the kits for almost half of the First Division's teams, including Everton, Nottingham Forest, Chelsea and both of the Sheffield clubs.

First Division/Premier League 1974-2014: Kit contracts for Adidas and Umbro
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By 1995, however, even Umbro were seeing their dominant grip on the market weakened. New companies were providing smart, stylish alternatives for England's top clubs; Asics, Puma, Reebok and even Nike wanted a piece of the action as the traditional giants of the kit world were forced to take a lower billing.

Apart from Umbro, there was one other company that made more First Division kits than Adidas - Pony. The American footwear firm arrived on the scene in 1993 with kits for Southampton and West Ham that both featured prominent 'reverse tick' elements on the upper part of the shirt. The tick came from Pony's logo, and while it looked fine on the West Ham kit, Southampton's red and white stripes struggled to form a harmonious complement with it.

Yet again smaller companies were snapping up the few crumbs that were left after the giants had fed. Clubhouse and View From were two names used by QPR in the early 1990's; Swindon's only season in the top flight saw them wear a kit by Loki; Avec came in to lend Sunderland a hand near the end of the decade, while Crystal Palace went for Nutmeg in 1994/95.

First Division/Premier League 1974-2014 - Kit manufacturers per season
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More so than ever, the fragmentation of the kit supply market was providing more choice for clubs and ever-more imaginative kit designs for fans to savour, but the 21st Century would see the trend slow down as the big companies returned to reclaim their territory.

Contraction: 2000 onwards

In 2004/05 and 2006/07, the 20 clubs of the Premier League in England used 14 different football kit providers - the greatest number in any one season. Adidas and Umbro were still there, but now Nike were pushing hard to join them at the top table. Not far behind were Reebok, a perpetual partner and shirt sponsor for Bolton Wanderers but now also a supplier of kit for Liverpool and Manchester City. Kappa and Puma were also a familiar sight in the Premier League around this time, while Le Coq Sportif were making something of a comeback too.

So many kit makers for so many clubs, and yet that all changed at a stroke at the start of the 2007/08 season. During the previous campaign, Umbro made kit for only one Premier League team - Everton. When the next season began, they had six clubs to their name - Birmingham, Blackburn, Everton, Sunderland, West Ham and Wigan.

Several kit companies disappeared from view that Premier League season - Airness, Diadora, Hummel, Joma, JJB and Lonsdale all found themselves without a contract for one of England's top teams, while Reebok's portfolio was reduced from three teams to just one - Bolton. Quite how or why Umbro had managed to snap up so many contracts is unclear, but their diamond-strewn designs of 2007/08 were certainly a common sight - even on the England kit of the time.

Click to see larger version

Umbro's dominance contracted again a few seasons later as Adidas and Nike consolidated their own exposure in the Premier League as once again a wider variety of manufacturers returned. Xara, Carbrini and Macron all wrote their names into the football kit history books, but a notable divide was slowly forming between the big companies and the smaller ones.

These days, we've come to accept this as the ongoing norm. On the one hand, Adidas, Umbro, Nike, Puma and Reebok struggling for overall superiority, well established and proven to create football kits of a high quailty. On the other hand, smaller and newer companies trying to make a positive impression but having to accept a limited impact among England's footballing elite.

Yet with this coming season, all that is about to change again. What Umbro did in 2007/08, Adidas have done on an even bigger scale for 2013/14, for they will start the next campaign providing kit for nine of the top 20 clubs in England. It is by far the strongest attempt by the German company to dominate the Premier League, and in the weeks to come you'll be seeing Chelsea, Fulham, Hull City, Southampton, Stoke City, Sunderland, Swansea, West Brom and West Ham wearing those three famous stripes.

How have Adidas forced their way to the top of the tree with such ruthlessness? In part, the answer lies with the disappearance of two of their main rivals. Reebok's final season in the Premier League came in 2011/12 when Bolton Wanderers were relegated, but this came seven years after Reebok became a subsidiary of Adidas themselves. As for Umbro, they were bought out by Nike in 2008 and have since been sold on to Iconix Brand Group during the last year. Whether we'll see the Umbro diamonds again in future remains to be seen, but there are some encouraging signs beginning to appear.

With two such big names no longer competing for a share of the market, Adidas has seen an opening and taken advantage. Quite what you may think of this year's Adidas kits would be interesting to know, but it seems the football kit landscape - in the Premier League at least - will be a less varied (perhaps less interesting) place this season. With only three companies - Adidas, Nike and Puma - owning 75% of all the top clubs' kit deals, the likelihood for diverse design sadly seems all but doomed. We can only hope for better in the not too distant future.

Total number of 'kit seasons' for all manufacturers - 1974-2014
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Kit manufacturers used by First Division/Premier League teams (1974-2014)
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With special thanks to Dave Moor at Historical Football Kits for his help in providing the data for this article.

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The Greatest England Home Kit Ever 1965-2013: The Result

After nearly six weeks of voting, we now know what YOU chose as the greatest England home kit worn in the modern era.

We can now reveal that with just over a third of the 169 votes we received, the winner was Admiral's England kit worn between 1980 and 1983 (below), most memorably seen during the 1982 World Cup.

Yet again this bold, iconic design has found favour with football fans of all kinds, easily proving itself more popular than other England kits worn during classic World Cup campaigns.

And there was more good news for Admiral as their previous home kit from the 1974 to 1980 era finished joint second in our poll, level with Umbro's World Cup '90 kit. Both received 19 votes, far less than the 57 picked up by our winning kit.

Half of all the kits featured in our poll received three votes or less including the current edition made by Nike (2) and Umbro's kit between 2010 and 2012 which was the only one not to receive any votes at all. This latter point is all the more bewildering when you consider it was the first England home kit to feature the bright blue shorts last seen on Admiral's winning kit from the 1982 World Cup.

No doubt further discussion will ensue about the qualities and shortcomings of our winning England kit - in fact we know for certain it will because we'll be discussing it in our 11th podcast which will be recorded in the next week or two. Until then, here's how the voting went, and of course we'd love to hear your thoughts about any of the kits involved - particularly those you voted for!

Click for larger view

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Great Tracksuits of Our Time: No.15

Manchester City and Wolverhampton Wanderers (1974):

In the world of international fashion, bright citrus-coloured pants have rarely, if ever, been considered as acceptable. The same can be said of sky blue two-piece outfits with red trimmings.

Luckily the world of football doesn't concern itself with international fashion, and this undoubtedly allowed the 1974 League Cup Final to be one of the most colourful occasions ever seen at Wembley. And that was before the match got started.

As the two teams walked out onto the pitch for the big match, 97,000 fans could have been excused for whipping out their sunglasses and shielding their eyes from the glare.

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The Greatest England Home Kit Ever 1965-2013

So now we know. The new England home kit by Nike has been launched and whether we like it or not, we're stuck with it for a whole year. It can now take it's place alongside all the other England home kits from recent history where it can be judged on its merits and flaws...

...and that's why we're here - to determine the Greatest England Home Kit Since 1965. You'll have seen our recent posts reflecting on the high and low points of England home kit design, but now it's time for all of you to rate the very best outfit of the last 48 years.

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Great Tracksuits of Our Time: No.14 - FA Cup Special

Not long to go now until FA Cup Final Day, so let's look back to 1978 when two rather fine tracksuit tops graced the biggest game in the English football calendar.

The scene was Wembley, the teams were Ipswich Town and Arsenal. Terry Neill and Bobby Robson emerged from the tunnel into the warm May sunshine and shortly after we got our first sight of the 22 players that would start the 1978 FA Cup Final.

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Great Tracksuits of Our Time: No.8

Derby County (1978):

Much as we love the flamboyance of Admiral's many daring tracksuit designs, we shouldn't forget that it sometimes pays to imply a sense of style through understatedness. To that end, we bring you a lovely Umbro tracksuit worn by Derby County in the 1977/78 season.

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Rich J's Top 5... Worst England Home Kits

As usual when Chris posts a Top 5, my immediate reaction is to grab onto his coat tails and quickly chuck my own top 5 out there, but in the case of his Top 5 England Home Kits, he's chosen some crackers and 2 of my would-be top 5 are also in there.

At some point, I will choose my Top 5 2nd/3rd kits, but for now, I'm going in the opposite direction and bang out what I think are the Top 5 worst England home kits. 

In no particular order...

1. Umbro 2003-2005 

Famous for: Penalty woe... again

Worn in England's disappointing (do we ever have any other kind of tournament these days?) Euro 2004 campaign, this kit conjures up images of surrendered leads and yet another penalty shoot-out defeat. The reason I dislike this kit however is the sheer banality of it. 

When dealing with minimal designs, there's a fine line between 'classic' (see 2010) and bland. This sits on the latter's side. What could have been a great kit with clean lines and a strong red shoulder stripe is rendered boring by lame horizontal shadow patterning and a tiny tiny England badge. Instead of appearing bold, it appears apologetic. Apology not accepted!

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Chris O's Favourite 5... England home kits

Once again we find ourselves ready to make acquaintance with another new England home strip, an altogether more frequent event these days but made all the more exciting this time around due to a new manufacturer taking over.

But before we embrace all that Nike has to offer, I thought I'd take a look at the home kits England have worn since World Cup '66 and pick out my own Favourite 5... and if you want to see Rich J's Worst 5, click here!

1. Admiral 1980-83

The first and so far only England shirt I've ever owned, or at least a cheap nylon interpretation of one. When England wore this strip for the first time against Argentina in a 1980 friendly, BBC commentator Barry Davies felt duty bound to question the inclusion of all the colours of the Union Flag on the kit. Maybe he was right, but it would be another 32 years before he'd see an England home kit that was only white and red.

When this kit was launched in May 1980, I remember feeling at the time that the design was good, but not quite on a par with those being produced by Adidas at the time. True though this might have been, it offered a unique look that no other team had, thanks to those distinctive horizontal bands across the shoulders.

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Great Tracksuits of Our Time: No. 2

Liverpool (1977):

Once again we witness the seamster's art in all its glory as Bob Paisley's FA Cup finalists of 1977 wear their name proudly on the back of their tracksuit tops. The garment itself is beautifully styled by Umbro with a striped collar, cuffs and waist band, a style that Umbro resurrected for England's 2012/13 anthem jackets [retch]. On the front (see Emlyn Hughes above), we see a big Umbro diamond opposite a Liverpool FC badge with commemorative 'FA Cup Final 1977' stitching below. On the reverse... well it has to be some shouty letters spelling out your club name, doesn't it? It was never any other way back in the 70's, and so much the better for it.

Seen any fine examples of retro tracksuit design? Tell us all about them by dropping us a line to admin [at] thefootballattic [dot] com.

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