When Shorts Were Short S3 E17 - LEIGHTON JAMES (Wales, Burnley, Derby, QPR, Swansea, Sunderland, Bury and Newport)

When Shorts Were Short

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 don't talk about it.

“I’m like the Ayatollah – back out of exile.”

That great line was uttered by left winger Leighton James, actually one of the best two-footed wingers in the British game during the 70s, when he returned to the Wales team after a long period out and helped take England apart 4-1 in May 1980 in what was manager Mike England’s first game in charge of Wales. To put that game into context, just four days earlier at Wembley, England had convincingly defeated world champions Argentina.

Breaking through as a 17-year-old in late 1970 for the club of his life Burnley, James had won his first cap for Wales a year later and would, in a 12-year career for the national team, score 10 goals in 54 appearances.

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