KEY POINTS:
In the first of five extracts from Pitch Invasion, the scene is the 1966 football World Cup where adidas was determined to make a name for its innovative new boots.
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In June 1966 Horst Dassler unpacked his bags for a lengthy stay at the Coburg hotel, a convivial establishment on Queensway in Bayswater. For nearly a month this would be the headquarters of a hard-hitting adidas contingent: their mission was to ensure that the upcoming World Cup would be entirely covered in three stripes.
Previous England teams had consistently failed to shine at international level, but on home turf the English were uncharacteristically upbeat about their prospects. After a strong run in friendly games, English newspapers were boisterously endorsing the national side.
The England manager, Alf Ramsey, added to the expectations by boldly declaring that his side was favourite to snatch the trophy, and to reaffirm England's supremacy at the game that it invented.
For Horst Dassler, the opportunity was just as momentous. The three stripes had begun to spread on English pitches, but if he played his cards right over the next weeks he would achieve invaluable exposure among the players and supporters who still wielded the strongest influence in the game.
A full adidas squad joined Horst for the occasion, including Kathe, his mother, who flew over with Inge, his eldest sister. Several other rooms were booked at the Coburg for the company's international managers, as well as the efficient partners who had zealously promoted adidas among English football players over the previous years.
Until the late fifties, English footballers were reluctant to let go of their heavy clodhoppers. The country's preference continued to be for English brands which prided sturdiness rather than style, with bulbous toe caps and ankle protection, and which could last several years. Among the best-selling makes were the Villain and the Hotspur, both manufactured by the Manfield factory in Stockport.
Barney Goodman, a sports retailer in Southgate, was stunned by the much sleeker adidas boots when he was given a pair in the fifties. He knew that more skilful players would appreciate their lightness, and so asked Manfield if they could make boots along the same lines. The response bordered on sarcasm: the light boots were just a fad, Manfield replied, and they weren't interested.
Jimmy Gabriel was a teenage player at Dundee United at the time. He distinctly recalled the day when his coach pulled him aside, explaining that he had received some weird German boots and would like Gabriel to try them on.
"They didn't look like anything I had ever seen before," he said. "We had always worn these brown and thick boots, but all of a sudden here were these slick black boots with white stripes that really looked more like shoes than boots."
As he strutted onto the pitch, Gabriel was ridiculed by supporters and team-mates alike. The low cut looked effeminate, they told him less politely, and he couldn't possibly play football in shoes.
"I ignored the jibes because the boots felt unbelievable," said Gabriel. "It would take two years to break in the English boots and to get any control over the ball, but the adidas felt comfortable from the start and I could feel the ball right away."
Watching his precision improve, Gabriel's colleagues soon cut out the snide remarks and asked him where they could get a pair.
The same happened to Roy Gratrix, a centre-half at Blackpool. He had been travelling to Europe and returned with a pair of adidas. Gratrix immediately adopted them and extolled their virtues in the dressing room, but his manager was not impressed. There was no way he would let Gratrix play in these things that didn't even have ankle protection. They looked like carpet slippers!
But Horst's parents, Adi and Kathe Dassler, had picked a partner with unparalleled contacts in British football. Umbro, established near Manchester, had become a leading contender in the football shirt business.
The Dasslers reckoned that, distributed by such a prominent partner, the three stripes would quickly gain ground in England. Since adidas sold only boots and Umbro only clothing, it seemed to be a judicious arrangement for both parties.
To impose adidas on English pitches, the contacts built up by Umbro proved decisive. Players still had to buy their own boots and, although leading clubs often agreed to defray such expenses by up to 50 per cent, boots still represented a considerable expense for the players, whose weekly earnings were capped at £20 until the maximum wage arrangement imposed by the football federation was finally abandoned in 1961.
Although the cost of a pair of boots is the least of a modern Premiership footballer's concerns, no one at the time would have believed that boot companies would ever fork out millions of pounds for players to wear their brand.
"We were always fishing for boot contracts but I never got one, even though I played on the national team for nearly six years," sighed Bobby Robson. "When I was given a pair I thought gee-whiz, that was a stupendous deal."
In the absence of large cheques, the leading contenders competed on the strength of their boots, as well as small favours and personal relationships.
When Umbro began to sell adidas boots in 1961, they turned the market on its head.
The heavy boots favoured by the English players all but disappeared, to be replaced by the lighter and low-cut boots.
Just a few years after Roy Gratrix and Jimmy Gabriel had been derided for their "carpet slippers" almost the entire League seemed to be wearing them.
Another to enjoy some success was Mitre, which made its own balls and boots up in Huddersfield.
They grabbed a few headlines with Denis Law, the Scotsman who enthralled the crowds at Old Trafford alongside George Best.
But as the adidas and Umbro managers settled in the Coburg, they could rest assured that they would quash all of their English rivals at the World Cup.
Brand wars
* In the big business world of sport, adidas and Puma are two of the major global brands paying stars, clubs and competitions millions to wear their label.
* It all started in the 1920s when brothers Adi and Rudi Dassler started a shoe business in a small German town. Their passion for sports shoes coincided with the rise of organised sports and was an immediate success.
* But World War II resulted in a bust-up between the two brothers, who then set up competing operations - adidas and Puma.
* The book Pitch Invasion charts their story and the expansion of the sports industry under the management of their children.
