Umbro was founded in Manchester, , making it one of the oldest sportswear brands that are still around. They were one of the first companies to supply professional football clubs with kits.
The only other team to win the World Cup in those 12 years was England, in their iconic red Umbro kit from the final. The Mancunian sportswear firm then changed football culture forever in when they introduced replica football shirts for children who wanted to feel like their favourite players. This trend has grown massively since then. In the late 80s in America, the tiny drawstring shorts made by Umbro became popular with youth up and down the nation.
Umbro became a part of everyday fashion in the UK during the 90s. Nike bought Umbro in and for the last decade, the brand has been on a road to recovery to its glory days in the 90s. They now sponsor teams like Everton and West Ham but have struggled to sell their football boots, not only in comparison with staple names Nike and Adidas but even to the likes of New Balance and Puma. He was very caring and he was a great leader.
There were even occasional perks for the staff, who would otherwise spend their days labouring over the clunky Singer sewing machines that made the shop floor such a noisy place. In the Fifties Harold prepared his two sons John and Stuart to take over the running of the business. Along with his brother, he was responsible for streamlining the manufacturing process, using cutting edge work practices of the day. In the hands of his sons, it resulted in a significant overhaul of the business and its production processes.
John became managing director in when his father was elevated to chairman and it enabled the company to focus its resources as Umbro finally challenged — and overtook — the dominance of Bukta in the football market. By the mid Sixties Umbro were laying claim to supplying strips to 85 per cent of British clubs. John was also encouraged by his father to travel the world in search of new business. Umbro began selling Adidas products in the UK in , transforming the domestic game as footballers abandoned the traditional burly British leather football boots in favour of their sleek but little known European rivals.
The World Cup finals proved a watershed for Umbro. Having written to all the British Embassies in the countries that looked likely to qualify, John Humphreys set off on a global business trip in December , returning the following month having managed to secure the kit contracts for all of the competing nations.
To promote the achievement his brother Stuart posed for the newspapers at Manchester Airport surrounded by 16 BEA trolley dollies, each wearing the football strip of one of the finalists. But when the tournament finally commenced, without any explanation the Soviet Union chose not to wear the kit they had been sent, making them the only Umbro refuseniks at the World Cup.
With a bold bid during a meeting with Alf Ramsey and FA secretary Denis Follows in , he managed to snatch the deal to kit out the England team from right under the noses of rivals Bukta, returning the contract to Umbro after an absence of five years. Up until that point professional clubs and national football associations still purchased football strips from companies like Umbro on standard commercial terms. The Admiral experience proved a valuable lesson for Umbro and in the Eighties it became the most significant player in the replica market.
By this time, however, Umbro was a very different company, the passing of Harold Humphreys having been followed five years later by the sudden death of his son John. The loss of the managing director aged just 49 was a profound shock to the company. Without a doubt the business went through a period of lacking that firm hand on the tiller. In many ways the relationship had been built on the personal friendships between the Dassler and Humphreys families, but it failed to survive the death of John.
Early signs of discontent had followed the first steps by Adidas into the apparel market in the Seventies, and while Umbro remained contractually restricted from moving into football hardware — boots, balls and shin guards — Adidas relentlessly pressured their partners for a share of the lucrative UK kit market, which Umbro effectively dominated.
It was always likely that Humphreys Brothers and Adidas would part ways somewhere down the line. Freed from the Adidas contract in , Umbro were finally able to put football boots into production. The company expanded out of all recognition in the Eighties, as it chased hard after the global vision that John Humphreys had always imagined for the brand.
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