Season in Kits – Leeds United, 1992-93

• Thanks as ever to Andrew Dalton for his assistance

When the Premier League began in 1992-93, Umbro produced kits for 11 clubs, exactly half of the entrants.

That number was bumped up by the switching of Manchester United from adidas, dropping the German firm to two sides (Arsenal and Liverpool the others) , and second place behind Umbro was taken by Admiral, helped by Leeds’ defection from the double-diamond. They joined Middlesbrough, Southampton and Wimbledon.

The Leeds deal had been agreed in 1991 and was intended to be a five-year partnership, reviving memories of the successful 1970s link-up between the parties. According to Daniel Chapman’s book Do You Want To Win?, Leeds chairman Bill Fotherby preferred to call it a “business partnership”. Leeds’ sponsorship deal with Burton/Top Man ended in 1991 and so Admiral spied a chance to avail of a combo deal – the Yorkshire Evening Post stepped in as sponsors for a season which would end with Leeds as champions.

While Admiral had faded after the 1970s, they were keen to make an impact again. The deal, worth £1.4m annually, was one of the biggest in English football and the company’s chairman Simon Gidney was very excited.

“What the club has achieved over the last three seasons is really quite remarkable, and going into the 1990s I think the club is poised for a very successful future,” he said.

Admiral’s offerings were of the philosophy that was beginning to become common – have a fairly classy home shirt and then allow the designers to flex their creative muscles with the change kits. In Leeds’ case, both the second and third shirts were reversals of each other – however, yellow – so often the away choice – was now third with blue as the main back-up.

All three shirts featured the Yorkshire rose and LUFC monogram in their fabric, while plainer shorts were used for the third kit, compared to the blue set which matched the shirt design.

Leeds began the season with victory over Liverpool in the Charity Shield, with Eric Cantona scoring a hat-trick, but even before that they had appeared in a mashup of the new kits. Hosting the Makita Tournament, which featured Nottingham Forest, Stuttgart and Sampdoria, they changed to blue socks with the home shirts and shorts against the Italian side.

It was the first of four different mixes of the kits and each alternative combination would only be worn once. The Coca-Cola Cup draw saw Leeds up against Scunthorpe United, whose home kit that season featured a mainly sky-blue shirt with white shorts and socks, and so Howard Wilkinson’s side played in the home shirts with away shorts and socks.

Then, at the end of November, Leeds were away to Chelsea, who had reverted back to white socks at home. On this occasion, they opted for the yellow socks from the third kit, which had been worn in the Champions League first-round replay against Stuttgart in Barcelona.

The Chelsea match was a 1-0 loss, another disappointing result on the road in a season which would end without an away league win. The blue kit was considered particularly unlucky – the only victory in it a friendly against Japanese side Grampus Eight – and it wasn’t seen again after a 4-0 loss away to Tottenham Hotspur in February 1993.

While the new Premier League dispensed with the ‘shorts-clash’ rule that the Football League had, Leeds opted for another mashup at White Hart Lane, changing shorts to the yellow set but retaining the blue socks.

Thereafter, the yellow kit was used when a clash arose, meaning the blue shirt remained winless.

The primary goalkeeper shirt was a mix of blue and green, using a pattern not-disimilar from the triangles on the away and third mixed with a yellow zig-zag.

Perhaps surprisingly, some referees allowed it to be worn with the blue away kit or against teams in blue, though in Europe the rules were stricter and a stock grey design with a geometric pattern was often worn.

In addition, a yellow version of the Admiral ‘flames’ design was used at home to Rangers. Both the grey and yellow shirts featured red trim on the collar and cuffs – hard to imagine such a situation passing without comment now.

The club finished in 17th of 22 teams, just two points above the relegation spots. The campaign proved to be the only one with Admiral in the Premier League as the five-year deal was prematurely cut short – in the summer of 1993, Southampton changed to Pony and Wimbledon to Ribero while Middlesbrough were relegated, so there was no Admiral club in the second season of the Premier League and there hasn’t been another since.