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HISTORIC J. W. Foster & Sons shop in Bolton
IN 1943, at the age of eight, Joe Foster won an 80 yards sprint race in his home town of Bolton and was given a dictionary as a prize.
Fifteen years later, looking in that same dictionary, he found the word reebok, meaning a small gazelle, and his new sports shoe brand was born.
Reebok is now a huge name in trainers, with sales of around £1.5billion in 2019. Singers Ariana Grande and Rita Ora, and model Gigi Hadid are among the big names seen in their classic sports shoes.
In his new book, Shoemaker, Joe tells the story of how a small family firm became a global giant.
Towards the end of the 19th century my grandad, also Joe Foster, became a purveyor of invention almost by accident. As a 15-year-old, he had two main interests: running in the Bolton Primrose Harriers, and repairing shoes and boots in his bedroom.
The latter pursuit he was good at. The running, like me, not so much. What Grandad Joe did have, though, was an inventive mind.
Fed up with being a backmarker in every race, he figured he would combine his two skillsets to get to the finishing line quicker.
Grandad Joe likely learned his cobbling skills through visiting his grandfather Sam’s shoe workshop in Nottingham.
Sam reputedly repaired the soles for lots of local spor t smen, and Joe had maybe seen the spiked cricket boots his grandad had made to give them more grip. Perhaps a seed had been planted.
As it was, in his bedroom at 90 Deane Road, my Grandad Joe set about designing a pair of spiked running shoes for himself.
In 1895, to test their effectiveness, he decided to try them out in a middle-distance track event.
The night before his first race, the shoes were still not finished.
He had hand-sewn only one of the clumps – the added outer sole on the front of the shoe from which the spikes protrude.
Working by candlelight late into the night, he had neither the visibility nor the patience to sew the
clump on to the other shoe. He simply hammered it on with nails.
His fellow racers were both intrigued and amused. How on earth would these ugly, and mismatched, shoes give him an advantage over standard plimsolls?
As the starting gun went off, Joe’s spikes dug into the cinder track, giving him a perfect kick-off into his stride, his feet lifting light in shoes that felt barely there.
By the first bend, he was already several yards in front.
But as he began his last lap... he felt a strange sensation in his right foot. It felt like he was running over glass, every step sending agonising needles of pain through the ball of his foot. He looked behind to see the second and third-place runners catching him up. But, even more worrying, he spotted the dusty, spiked clump from his right pump lying on the track like a dead rat.
Joe finished second to last. He snatched off what was left of his running pumps and hobbled home.
This gut-wrenching experience was just a reminder that there are no short cuts. His next pair wouldn’t let him down and, for the next few months, he worked again on the design, making the perfect, lightweight running pumps. When he tried them in a race, he came a very unlikely second.
Now his clubmates all wanted a pair of these new wonder shoes...
Fast forward to May 18, 1985, I reached the halfway milestone of my life when I turned 50.
I wasn’t yet ready to down tools and kick back in a rocking chair.
As president of the International
Division, I needed to finish the job I had started all those years ago and make sure Reebok was a global brand. Reeboks were soon becoming the rock stars of footwear, and sales exploded.
That year Mick Jagger donned Reebok trainers to leap around with David
Bowie in the musi in the Street. The next year I in Manchester, ju skin as Sigourney down extra-terres wearing Reebok “in Aliens. Oth celebs includin also sported t Our next wa to increase o tennis. Reebok sponsor of competitions, tering o
Grandad Joe would have been honoured that all his hard work came to this
JOE FOSTER FOUNDER OF REEBOK BRAND