As part of his job here at Umbro, our colleague Elliott has been putting together our Flickr archives. Whilst examining Umbro’s past, he’s discovered some interesting stories about football’s history that he’s going to be sharing with us. To start, he’s brought together some of the stories behind the origins of current Premiership clubs wearing Umbro shirts. There’s probably loads more little facts and stories about your clubs that we’re yet to discover – if we’ve missed anything out or if there’s other stories you think we’d enjoy please let us know some of your favourites…

‘Working in the Umbro archive has unveiled a lot of history about the Premiership teams we sponsor, and especially how they were formed. Some were created for exercise, while others were with groups of factory workers who fancied a kick about. We thought we’d have a brief look at some of our Premier League teams and find out just where they came from.

West Ham United

Most fans and historians agree that West Ham United was founded in 1895 as the Thames Ironworks team by foreman Dave Taylor and the works owner Arnold Hill. The team played as amateurs with a number of staff including clerks, boilermakers and firemen. In that year Thames Ironworks F.C. were the winners of the first West Ham Charity Cup, a local competition with teams in the area.

Move on a couple of years and the amateur side had won the London League, prompting a turn towards professional football in 1898 when the side arrived in the Southern League Second Division. It wasn’t long until the club was promoted to the First Division on their first try, although the team struggled and ended second to bottom that season, but stayed up by beating their rivals Fulham 5-1 to stay in the first division. In June 1900 Thames Ironworks F.C. closed for business, then almost immediately relaunched in July as West Ham United F.C.

The team wore dark blue kits to begin with as a nod to Arnold Hill who had previously been an Oxford University “blue”. The team adopted sky blue shirts and white shorts from 1897 to 1899. Shortly after the team finally changed into the claret and sky blue shirts they still wear today.

Hull City FC

Originally the team was formed in June 1904, but attempts had already been made for some time to found a football club in the city. Hull was dominated at the time by Rugby League teams.

Frustratingly the clubs first professional season consisted of friendly fixtures due the timing of the team’s formation,which meant that they had missed the application date for the 1904-1905 Football League. Their debut match took place against Notts County; with 6,000 in attendance at The Boulevard rugby ground, Hull held County to a 2–2 draw.

The club’s first competitive football match was in the early stages of the FA Cup, however the club lost to Stockton in a replay. Following this the team moved to Anlaby Road Cricket Ground from The Boulevard after disputes with landlords and were entered in the Football League Second Division for the 1905–06 season. The club finished the season in fifth place and continued to finish in the top half of the table for future seasons.

Sunderland AFC

James Allan founded the Sunderland District & Teachers Association Football Club on 17 October 1879 as “recreational amusement” for teachers in the surrounding area. The club changed its name to the Sunderland Association Football Club in 1881 to allow people who were not teachers to play. As the club steadily became more professional, Allan would leave to create Sunderland Albion, with the two clubs becoming fierce rivals until Sunderland Albion disbanded in 1892.

The club entered the Football League in the 1890-91 season, going on to win the league championship in the 1891–92 season. The team received a lot of praise during this time, with the founder of the football league William McGregor describing them as a “Team Of All Talents”.

Sunderland would nearly have a hat trick of successive league championships in the 1893–94 season but would end the season in second place behind Aston Villa. The club grabbed the league chamionship again in the 1894–95 season and went on to play the champions of the Scottish league, Heart of Midlothian. Sunderland came through with a 5-3 victory and were announced as “champions of the world”.’

We’ll have part two of this story, later this week…