Designer and Retro Trainers at Discount Prices

golaBrand History

On the 22nd May 1905 in Leicester, England, the Gola brand was created by Jospeph Leeson & Sons. To date, no one’s really sure how the name came about, it’s thought to have been an anagram of the word goal.

During World War II, Gola did its bit for Britain by making boots for the army.
In the 1950’s, Gola’s production was centred on heavy boots and shoes, as well as football and rugby boots. As manufacturing techniques advanced, so did Gola as they moved to develop modern football boots and training shoes.

Clever marketing saw Gola targeting physiotherapists at football matches by supplying them with branded holdalls. When they ran to the pitch to assist fallen players, the brand gained maximum TV coverage.

It was the mid 60’s when Shankly’s famous Liverpool team stopped off at the Gola factory on their way to the FA Cup final at Wembley for some free boots. Adidas later approached the team at Wembley and paid them to wear their boots instead. Rather than give-up their Gola’s, the team simply painted Adidas stripes onto their Gola boots and went on to win the cup!

In 1968, the ‘Harrier’ training shoe, the flagship design of the Gola range was born. It was suitable for squash, badminton, volleyball and of course, training! ‘Harrier’ changed the British sportswear scene and became the must have training shoe of the late 60’s and early 70’s.

It wasn’t long before Gola was seen on the famous feet of Geoff Capes - twice the World’s Strongest Man. Gola’s football boots were worn by the likes of Tommy Smith, Emlyn Hughes, Gerry Francis, Trevor Brooking and Peter Shilton and football legend Sir Alf Ramsey joined Gola’s board of directors and acted as an ambassador for the brand.

In 1973, David Bedford sets a new world record for the 10,000m wearing Gola spikes with a time of 27 minutes and 30.8 seconds. A year later, the Mark Cox tennis shoe range is launched, which was quickly followed by the Barry John Rugby range and the Alan Knott cricket range.

Gola seemed to have a shoe for every sport, and were the first to use the word ‘trainer’ as an abbreviation of the training shoe. (trainer station sounds much better than training shoe station doesn’t it?!)

Sponsorship for Gola boomed in the 80’s, seeing Alan Minter win the World Middleweight crown  over Vito Antuofermo in a pair of red Gola boots and shorts.
Only a year later, Gola sponsors the cartoon hero ‘Roy of the Rovers’. Melchester Rovers wore a red and yellow branded kit and Roy wore Gola football boots.

When Gola sponsored the Conference league, it was known as the ‘Gola League’ and Gola sponsored a monarchy-themed version of It’s a Knockout in 1987.

In 2000, the Gola Classics line was created, building on the brand’s British heritage, without losing any of its fashion-status and as such Gola became the footwear of choice of celebrities such as Robbie Williams, Jude Law, Paul Weller and the Gallagher brothers.

Celebrations began in 2005 when Gola (now aged 100) became one of the oldest British Sports brands. 3 years later, Gola celebrated 40 years of its most iconic trainer, the Gola ‘Harrier’, a style which has been produced in over 200 different colour combinations!

In 2009, we stocked our first pair of Gola trainers, and we’re proud to have them in our team!