This year marks the centenary of the establishment of Umbro by Harold and Wallace Humphreys (Humphreys Brothers).
The occasion is being marked by a book charting the ups and downs of 100 years of sports outfitting – written by Alex Ireland, it will be a must not just for football kit enthusiasts but the sport in general, given how ubiquitous the brand has been.
Naturally, one’s sense of when Umbro’s golden period was is likely to depend on their own age, but we feel that, objectively speaking, the 1980s definitely hit a rich vein.
The ‘Rivera’ design is of course a stand-out, while Arsenal were wearing a style known as ‘Arsenal’ – just as they would under adidas half-a-decade later. Perhaps, though, it might have been less confusing to not have a ‘Milan’ (stripes) and ‘Milano’ (plain) – we hope no Sunday league team ended up with something other than what they thought they were offering.
Image-manipulation was still something in its infancy and there is an innocent charm to the re-colouring of the shoulder pads on the goalkeeper’s shirt on page 5.
It’s also interesting to note that adidas footwear is used by everyone – the companies’ alliance, which had begun in the 1960s, was on its very last legs. The world of sportswear was in a state of flux and Umbro, having been a family-run organisation well-regarded by employees and customers alike, was set for some upheaval in the decades ahead.
Still, this catalogue serves as a valuable snapshot in time.
That is absolutely priceless as a snapshot of 80s Umbro – best one shared yet. And I wasn’t aware of the Alex Ireland book in the works, so thank you for that heads up as well!
I did put some comments on the MoJ page on Instagram but I’m on a temporary hiatus from there at the minute… it is interesting to note that whilst the “Grobbelaar” and “Bernabeu” goalkeeper jerseys with padded shoulders were introduced for 1985/86, Umbro teams in the Football League continued to use a self-coloured version of the “Flamengo” design that season, possibly not knowing that the Football League had finally relaxed the long-outdated rule that goalkeeper jerseys had to be self-coloured.
Eric Nixon would wear a grey version of the “Bernabeu” shirt in the 1986 Full Members’ Cup final, and in Scotland the “Bernabeu’ design would be common, though Rangers used the older “European” design, and Celtic used their bespoke goalkeeper kit on the final page on the brochure, but a grey shirt with green sleeves (the alternate version) was almost always used in 1985/86.
The “Grobbelaar” shirt did see some use in 1986/87 but most Umbro teams wore the new “Mexico” design introduced that year, based on the English goalkeeper shirt design worn by Peter Shilton at Mexico ’86. I have noticed that the “Grobbelaar” design did seem to get a lot of use in Spain when Umbro supplied some teams there, albeit about 1-2 seasons later than this catalogue.
Another note – I wonder what he difference was between the “Anfield” and “Milano” designs? To me they looked exactly the same, only the “Anfield” design came in more colourways, and had been in Umbro teamwear catalogues for a while (obviously based on the Liverpool 1976-82 design). I do see a comment on the “Milano” as “Export Only”, however.
The “Torino” design in red, by the way, was worn by Bournemouth when they knocked Manchester United out of the FA Cup in 1984, so this was probably one of the few “retained” designs from earlier Umbro catalogues.