When Shorts Were Short concerns itself solely with what was actually a very narrow window in football history when teams wore, well, short shorts. The podcast takes 1954 as its starting point, when Umbro made their first England kit with shorter shorts, to 1992, when short shorts were all but finished as Umbro's baggy shorts for Tottenham's new kit, ahead of the '91 FA Cup Final, quickly caught on.
If the shorts weren't short, we just don't talk about it.
This week’s guest is Keith Hackett, regarded by FIFA as one of the top 100 all-time referees. The Sheffield-born man in black enjoyed a rapid rise through the officiating ranks in the early 70s and by the middle of that decade, aged just 32, was refereeing in the old First Division of the Football League.
At just 36, unusually young for the time, Keith refereed one of the all-time great FA Cup Finals, the ’81 epic between Tottenham and Man City, the 100th FA Cup Final at a time when it cannot be overstated just how massive that competition was.
Eleven years later, via many more huge games, Keith was still refereeing for the first couple of Premier League seasons before retiring in the mid-90s.
Never mind the fact that his long career brought him into contact with many of the big names in football, as you’ll hear, his European games brought him face to face with some major historical figures of the late 20th century.