FOOTBALL BOOTS HAVE come a long way since the birth of the beautiful game.
100 years ago, players wore what would be more at home on a building site than a football pitch today – trudging around in horribly heavy boots with steel-capped toes.
According to FIFA: “It wasn’t until 1925 that the first replaceable studs – changeable according to the underfoot conditions – came into existence, although it took another couple of decades for the focus to shift from merely protecting players’ feet to providing a boot better equipped to control, pass and dribble with.”
New technology and major investment by sports manufacturers into R&D means some of the futuristic feather-light footwear players compete in is barely recognisable to what their counterparts wore as recently as the early 1990s. Not to mention the fact that they now come in every colour imaginable.
Buying a new pair is an art in itself and the brand, style and colour you decide on often speaks volumes about type of player you are. Below, we will attempt explain how:
The flashy winger
The no-nonsense hardman
The big-time Charlie
The misunderstood outsider
The exotic one
The traditionalist
The knobhead
The specialist
The code-breaker
The occasional five-a-side player
The maestro
And finally... the lad who really isn't much good
Great article, short and sweet.
Pulling on my Puma Kings and kicking the hole off a kid in a pair of pink boots is one of the great pleasures of the sporting life.
Never throw out a pair of football boots, someday you’ll take them in your hands and remember what it was like to be young and not give a damn about anything more ninety minutes.
Puma Kings are the best. Always loved wearing them.
I wore Black adidas copa mundials as a kid, my dad got them for me as i was the only sports child. They were the best boots ever…if my old man saw me wearing anything but black boots he’d call me a Nancy boy.
I was about to reply that’s mine we’re Prada , then I noticed it was about football boots! Well I wore Gola back in the day when I played women’s soccer!! :-)
Sums up soccer very nicely indeed. Glad the proper football is back today. Earnestly hope it too doesn’t go the way of soccer.
Care to expand?
Well you’re a real barrel of laughs