hibs / derby / liverpool - pick the bones out of this... In 1977 Hibernian became the first top-level UK club to wear shirts carrying sponsorship (by Bukta, the kit manufacturer). Derby County landed the first English deal with Saab in 1978 but the sponsored shirts were never worn after the pre-season photo shoot. It fell to Liverpool a year later to wear the first shirts to carry a sponsor’s name in the Football League in 1979.
RE: here you go Knowledge Unlimited Send your questions to the.boss@guardian.co.uk. We'll do our best to answer them Scott Murray Wednesday November 8, 2000 Guardian Unlimited PUTTING IT ON YOUR SHIRT "You said that Liverpool were the first British club to have a shirt sponsor (Hitachi in 1979), but while Liverpool are doubtless the first professional club to be sponsored, I'm pretty sure Kettering beat them to it by a few years. This is not a wind-up. Maybe you can confirm it?" asks Jon Cudby. Having spoken to Kettering club historian Mel Hopkins, Jon, we can indeed. When Wolves striker Derek Dougan retired from football in the summer of 1975, he joined Southern League club Kettering Town as chief executive. Within a month of his appointment, he had brokered a "four-figure" deal with local firm Kettering Tyres, and in a SL game against Bath City on January 24 1976, Kettering became the first British club to run out with a company's name emblazoned on their shirts. Sadly, the groundbreaking new strip would not get another run-out. Four days later, the FA predictably ordered the club to remove the new slogan, despite Dougan's claim that the ruling body's 1972 ban on sponsorship had not been put down in writing. Characteristically, Dougan didn't take this body blow lying down. He cheekily changed the wording on the shirts to Kettering T, which he claimed stood for Town and had nothing whatsoever to do with Tyres. For a couple of heady months, the team played on under the new slogan. Sure enough, however, Kettering were soon up before the FA, who in April ordered them to "remove the words Kettering T from their strip". The threat of a £1,000 fine was too much for such a small club, and the words were reluctantly removed. There would be one final irony. Kettering didn't let the matter lie - after all, clubs like Bayern Munich had been coining it in on the continent for years - and so, with Derby and Bolton, they put forward a proposal to the FA regarding shirt sponsorship. But although the proposal was accepted on June 3 1977, Kettering could not find a sponsor for the upcoming season. Meanwhile, Derby players began that season running around in Saab shirts and Saab cars. Where's the justice
