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#Post#: 26275--------------------------------------------------
Kettering Tyres - Northern Irish link to huge shirt sponsorship
industry
By: Simon-613 Date: January 19, 2026, 5:00 pm
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Don't know if this article has been posted anywhere else on the
site - feel free to remove this post if it has.
But I saw today that the BBC have put up an article that credits
ex Northern Ireland international Derek Dougan with having
played a pivotal role in the emergence of shirt sponsorship in
the game.
'It is 50 years since Kettering Town, nicknamed the Poppies,
became the first English football club to feature a sponsor's
name on its shirt.
That moment, on 24 January 1976, spawned an industry now worth
hundreds of millions of pounds.
The £4,000 deal was secured by Derek Dougan, then the
Northamptonshire club's player-manager and business chief.'
'football finance expert Kieran Maguire believes Kettering
Town's move was a pivotal moment for the game.
"Since we've had the globalisation of the Premier League and La
Liga, it has meant shirt sponsorships have been a fantastic way
to partner up your brand with a sport that is globally popular,"
he says.
"We've seen major brands trying to get their name across to a
wider population and they're very much willing to pay premium
deals for that."
According to GlobalData, the combined value of shirt sponsorship
deals involving Premier League clubs and gambling companies
alone in the 2024-25 season was $135.43m (£101.1m).'
Full article here,
HTML https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c77kvx575npo
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