Whatever happened to the Adidas Predator football boot?

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It occurred to me today that I hadn't seen one in ages and was unsure if they'd just been dropped. After the fuss that was made of them, with their silly plastic things and everything, you'd have thought they would have changed the way football boots were made forever. But apparently not.

Anyone know anything about this?

NB: I realise this is utterly pointless and is perhaps the most unimportant thing I've ever typed - and there've been plenty of contenders - but sometimes I like to know things.

― Jim Robinson (Original Miscreant), Sunday, 18 January 2004 21:49 (twenty-two years ago)

The guy who designed it has just done a new boot with spikes on the top to help impart spin to the ball. See news ad nauseam.

― Ed (dali), Sunday, 18 January 2004 21:52 (twenty-two years ago)

The guy who designed it being that Australian who played for Liverpool, Craig Somethingorother?

― Jim Robinson (Original Miscreant), Sunday, 18 January 2004 23:29 (twenty-two years ago)

Johnson?

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Sunday, 18 January 2004 23:38 (twenty-two years ago)

Ian, no?

― Ed (dali), Sunday, 18 January 2004 23:40 (twenty-two years ago)

it was Craig Johnston

― stevem (blueski), Monday, 19 January 2004 00:17 (twenty-two years ago)

It was Craig Johnston yes, and he has now come up with the pig which uses nobbles like an old school table tennis bat to impart the spin (apparently it's 25% more effeicient at theis than the holey or bladed predators)

it's called the pig though because it's so ugly.

― chris (chris), Monday, 19 January 2004 09:48 (twenty-two years ago)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/38404000/jpg/_38404729_craigjohnston167.jpg

Craig Johnston (left): The last of the great LFC perms? Happy days...

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Monday, 19 January 2004 09:52 (twenty-two years ago)

There was a good interview with him in the Guardian last week where, apart from selling his boots, he talked about how he realised early on that he didn't have any talent as a footballer and so, still determined to become one to please his father, he devised a system of training specifically to work around that problem.

― Eyeball Kicks (Eyeball Kicks), Monday, 19 January 2004 10:38 (twenty-two years ago)

he does give a really good interview, I heard him on Five lve last week and it was most entertaining, especially the story of his first meeting at Adidas with Franz Beckenbauer.

― chris (chris), Monday, 19 January 2004 10:50 (twenty-two years ago)

Adidas still make Predators, but they're much more subtle now - they're just those little inserts that you see on the boots of Beckham et al, rather than the big plastic step thingys on the original ones.

http://www.sanderssports.co.uk/ecommerce/image1.jpg

― Hayden Nicholls (Pop the Weasel), Monday, 19 January 2004 12:42 (twenty-two years ago)

argh!

― Hayden Nicholls (Pop the Weasel), Monday, 19 January 2004 12:43 (twenty-two years ago)

Believe it or not I was buying new squash shoes today and was looking at football boots and pondering this very question. I didn't think it worthy of a thread though, but if it glorifies the top bloke that is Craig Johnson then it's all right by me :)

― ailsa (ailsa), Monday, 19 January 2004 12:55 (twenty-two years ago)

Also Craig Johnson wrote the Anfield Rap. All together now "we'll have to learn 'em to talk like us"

― ailsa (ailsa), Monday, 19 January 2004 12:57 (twenty-two years ago)

Are they really many true Renaissance Men in football?

― the icebox (nordicskilla), Monday, 19 January 2004 13:11 (twenty-two years ago)

Robbie Savage.

― Matt (Matt), Monday, 19 January 2004 13:47 (twenty-two years ago)

Matt making the simple error of mixing up Renaissance Man and Neanderthal Man.

― Pete (Pete), Monday, 19 January 2004 13:48 (twenty-two years ago)

Graham Le Socks read the Guardian, so he is an intellectual. Steve heighway and Steve Coppell had degrees, and so had more options at career-end time that publican or pundit. They are now both coaches.

Surely Mat's error is not simple, but schoolboy?

― Dave B (daveb), Monday, 19 January 2004 15:48 (twenty-two years ago)

most rennaissance man in footie = Zvonimir Boban, who, as I've written elsewhere, often retires to the library of his castle (which used to be the home of a pope in the 16th century) and read the first editions of his philosophy books.

― chris (chris), Monday, 19 January 2004 15:51 (twenty-two years ago)

Cantona, anyone?

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Monday, 19 January 2004 15:53 (twenty-two years ago)

the mickey Rourke of football

― chris (chris), Monday, 19 January 2004 15:55 (twenty-two years ago)

Also Pat Nevin. Used to read the NME on the team bus and has been spotted at a couple of Belle and Sebastian and Delgados gigs. That's a bit renaissance for a football person.

Doesn't Brian McClair have a degree too?

― ailsa (ailsa), Monday, 19 January 2004 15:59 (twenty-two years ago)

Boban is also a wild boy and was a key member of the Dynamo Zagreb side who fought the Police in 1990 game against Red Star Belgrade whicyh turned into a major flashpoint for the disintegration of Yugoslavia.

Is he a Heideggerrian? It's quite common in croatia

― Dave B (daveb), Monday, 19 January 2004 16:04 (twenty-two years ago)

Dion Dublin is a trained saxophonist

― stevem (blueski), Monday, 19 January 2004 16:06 (twenty-two years ago)

Francis Benali has an indepth knowledge of the works of Proust.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Monday, 19 January 2004 16:08 (twenty-two years ago)

Helder Postiga is 7th Dan jiu-jitsu.

― William Bloody Swygart (mrswygart), Monday, 19 January 2004 16:09 (twenty-two years ago)

Zvonimir was quite keen on Nietsche from what I remember, and possibly Kierkegaard. That article in the Observer sport had a great picture of him kicking a riot policeman, apparently he'd dragged him off a fan that was being beaten up.

― chris (chris), Monday, 19 January 2004 16:13 (twenty-two years ago)

Gordon Ramsay? Footballer to chef is quite renaissance.

I remember seeing a documentary years ago about how George Cohen became an undertaker after he quit football. This was a man who won a bloody World Cup.

― Jim Robinson (Original Miscreant), Monday, 19 January 2004 23:02 (twenty-two years ago)

Neil Paterson was a former Dundee United captain, who won an oscar in 1960 for his screenplay of the John Blaine novel Room at the top.

― Billy Dods (Billy Dods), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 16:26 (twenty-two years ago)

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