Following on from the Phil Parkes Cossack Hairspray advert that I featured in February, recently, I came across this one from Gola which includes Dave Thomas and Don Givens.
Gola were founded in 1905 and their first advert campaign was in the 1930’s when they displayed their slogan ‘Gola Means Goals’ on the sides of buses. It is thought that the name was originally chosen because it is an anagram of the word ‘goal’. Gola also made boots for the army during the 2nd World War.
I also came across this interesting story regarding Liverpool FC. In 1965, the team visited the factory on their way to the FA Cup Final to collect some free football boots. When they arrived at Wembley, an offer was made by Adidas, a rival company, to wear their boots instead. The story goes that the Liverpool players were more than happy to take the money from Adidas , but decided to wear the Gola boots and disguised them by painting on the three-stripes of Adidas !
This story reminds me of the wonderful occasion when Stan Bowles was offered £200 to wear Gola boots when England played Holland. Later, Adidas offered him £300 to wear theirs so Stan ended up wearing one boot from each company !!!
Steve Russell
I’ve never seen that one before. Great to see the top of the ad featuring 2 Rs greats and an Rs fan (Steve Perryman). Sportswear has a lot of history and, in the early days, was mainly provided on a local basis. John Bowman, the Rs player in the 1900s and later a club director, ran a sports wear shop at 7 Park Parade Harlesden and supplied the club with balls, boots, shirts etc. Of course the likes of Ron Springett, Phil Parkes, Mike Keen etc also had sports shops for many years. In the mid 70s when Adidas were still relatively new to the UK, their distributor was Umbro. A scenario that’s hard to believe nowadays!
I beleive the story about Liverpool at the 65 FA Cup Final is an urban myth. If you look at any of the photos from the final, some of the players are wearing Gola, some others Adidas and Ian St John is wearing Puma.I cant say the Stan story is myth or not but it seems weird that two ‘different’ stories are almost identical.