He made 61 appearances that season, scoring double figures, in which Liverpool won the domestic double. This was his ultimate season in his prime and one that he would sadly never repeat. Johnston retired in a Liverpool shirt at just 27 in , following an illness to his sister back home, whom he went to care for.
This was not to be the end of his success, as his jump into the business world was about to take off. The idea first came to him as a teenager when he was trying to make himself a better footballer whilst practising in a car park. He then took it literally with an actual table tennis bat, when he stripped the rubber off and wrapped it around his leather boot with elastic bands and began kicking with it.
He began working on a prototype of the boot to pitch to major sporting brands, with his figures exceeding 1, The prototype was turned down by all of the major sporting brands like Nike and Reebok, even Adidas at first, so what changed? This was the early s, Adidas was a far cry from where they are now and were on the brink of bankruptcy. They rejected his idea the first time and even the second time, but he was so sure that this was the boot of the future, so he persisted.
He went to Munich to show some of the biggest European players at the time, like Franz Beckenbauer. He was going to make this work, no matter what. With this footage, he stormed into a board meeting at Adidas after previous rejections.
He played them the video and they stood up and clapped. He signed an exclusive deal for them there and then.
He was given the role of lead designer and head of football innovation at Adidas. He moved to Nuremberg to start production on the boot in a lab that he built for them himself. Ahead of the World Cup in America, the boot was launched in Las Vegas, instantly becoming a phenomenon. Consider, if you will, your year-old Sunday league captain. Johnno, Stanno, or whatever. The stigma is certainly dying down now that colourful boots are more common than black ones, but for many years — and still in some circles — wearing, say, yellow boots would be seen as sign of arrogance, a surefire indicator of a preening winger begging for a bit of Johnno roughhousing.
Fancy was arrogant, indulgent, or just plain unmanly — labels an amateur player in the classic Predator era would be keen to avoid.
These were still mostly black football boots. Let's talk about Kalvinphillips and those boots. No wonder he's always smiling. Lufc pic. Think about it. Three years and about designs later he was ready to find a backer for his new product. Having been turned down by pretty much every manufacturer, including Adidas, Johnston approached Bayern Munich, supposedly gatecrashing a board meeting involving Franz Beckenbauer and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge.
When they agreed to try the boots, he filmed them on the training ground passing to one another and nodding their heads in approval. Johnston used this footage to convince Adidas to do a deal. The Predator now has quite a history. David Beckham was wearing a pair when he scored against Wimbledon from the halfway line at Selhurst Park in ; Zinedine Zidane, too, when he scored twice, albeit with his head, in the World Cup final.
Johnston's Predator boot was considered the main factor. The other one was Madonna. At the height of her fame, she was photographed wearing a red Adidas skirt. The power of sport and fashion had combined to devastating effect. Adidas was on its way to becoming the mega-brand and multi-billion dollar company that it is today.
Your ad blocker may be preventing you from being able to log in or subscribe. Newcastle Herald's trusted source for property. Home News Local News. The Guardian news website released a video of the milestone this week, which it titled "The Adidas Predator at the football boot that changed all boots". Then he went back to Adidas. He then worked on the boot concept furiously, developing at least prototypes. Beckenbauer remembered Johnston as "the number eight for Liverpool".
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