We have previously looked at Luton Town’s Umbro era from 1989-92, but it shouldn’t be forgotten that that followed a golden period with adidas that lasted a decade.
In truth, we could have chosen any of the Hatters’ three-striped kits here but we’ve opted for the last one where white shorts were favoured as first choice with the home kit. We say ‘last one’ but it went just a few different iterations.
Launched in 1981, it featured Tricentrol as sponsor with orange sleeves added. The change kit was in the same design with orange as the primary colour and navy the secondary. If one was to have one slight criticism, it would the use of white stripes rather than orange on the away shorts.
It proved to be Tricentrol’s last season and for 1982-83 they were replaced by Bedford Trucks, a partnership that was to last until 1990.
Essentially, the kits were unchanged but the striping on the home kit was altered. On the shirt, it had been three white stripes with navy in between but now they were three navy stripes with orange in between – adidas applied the stripes as a strip which was five stripes wide and, more often than not, the middle two were the same as the fabric on which the stripes appeared. Similarly, the navy-orange-navy-orange-navy on the shorts was replaced by three white stripes.
When required, the shorts were interchangeable, while for the game at Everton, the home shirt (unsponsored as it was a televised match) was joined with the away shorts and socks.
By 1983-84, the rules regarding sponsors’ logos in TV games had been relaxed to a degree – they were allowed but the size was limited compared to normal games.
For these matches, the ‘Trucks’ part was greatly reduced and accompanied by a thick navy stripe (right).
The following season, the decision was taken to swap the shorts colours – navy was now used for the home and white for the away, which remained orange, while the sponsor now simply red ‘Bedford’.
It was another solid set and one we may look at in a future post.
I love these kits, brilliantly interchangeable and astonishing that Luton had the same sock design from 1979-1988 (latterly with the addition of the adidas trefoil).