Craig Johnston's Predator Football Boots

The History of Adidas Predators from Concept to Design to Production

Sep 1, 2009 Tony Dunnell

Predator football boots are amongst the most popular and innovative football boots available. Here is the history of the original Craig Johnston Predator football boots.

The history of Predator football boots is a classic example of design through experience. Craig Johnston played professional football for both Middlesborough and Liverpool FC during the Eighties. In retirement, Craig Johnston began to combine his lifelong passions of football and design. The result was a prototype football boot that was to become the Adidas Predator.

The Original Predator Football Boot Design and the Innovative Mind of Craig Johnston

Like many youth academy football players, Craig Johnston began his career cleaning the football boots of the senior professionals. However, Johnston took a greater interest in his chores than most. From this early age he began trying on the various boots, testing them for comfort, immediately realizing that some were good and others obviously bad.

Through his career, Craig Johnston developed new methods for enhancing training regimes and his personal diet, and maintained his belief that football boots could and should be better.

Later, coaching children in Australia, Johnston had his eureka moment: “...I was telling them that they had to grip and bite into the ball like a table tennis bat to swerve it.” The children replied that their boots were leather, not rubber, and didn’t grip the ball in the rain.

The History of Adidas Predators – Origins of the Predator Football Boot

Contemplating this, Johnston returned home and took the rubber off a table tennis bat and stuck the material onto a pair of his own football boots: “Immediately I went outside again and kicked the ball, I could hear a squeak when the rubber engaged with the polyurethane of the ball” (quotes taken from an interview featured at www.designmuseum.org).

This realization led to the belief that a material could be used in order to increase grip on the ball, in turn increasing both control and the application of swerve. For this, the traditional football boot surface area needed to be changed in order to maximize overall contact with the ball.

Craig Johnston’s Predator Football Boots from Prototype to Adidas Worldwide Release

Craig Johnston invested much of his own money, and hundreds of hours of design and research, into the prototype boot. Johnston eventually found both a combination of boot structure and material that fulfilled his ideas. The rubber surface area featured hundreds of teeth-like dimples, increasing overall surface area and generating the desired grip and feel.

With the design complete, the next stage was finding a big-name manufacturer. After five years in development, Predator boots hit their next stumbling block. Adidas, Reebok and Nike all refused the design.

But Johnston was not to be beaten, and his football connections helped him find a backer. Johnston filmed German football legend Franz Beckenbauer using the boots in the snow in Germany, demonstrating the enhanced grip of the Predators. Adidas, a German company, liked what they saw, and Craig Johnston got his deal.

The First Predator Football Boot

The first Predator football boot was launched in 1994 for the USA World Cup. Soon, Adidas sponsored football stars were playing in the new Predator football boots. David Beckham wears Predators to this day, as do Michael Ballack, Steven Gerrard and Lionel Messi to name just a few.

Now arguably the most popular and innovative football boots on the market, Adidas Predator football boots have continued to lead the way in football boot technology. Craig Johnston’s innovation and determination paid off in spectacular fashion.

Craig Johnston and ‘The PIG’, a New Development After Predator Football Boots

Craig Johnston did not stop after revolutionizing the football boot just once. Johnston was nominated in the 2004 British Designer of the Year Award for a new football boot innovation. Despite not winning the award, Johnston’s new design, ‘The Pig’, was picked up by the media.

The Pig (Patented Interactive Grip) differed from the Predator football boot design in that it was a slip-on sleeve to be placed over any football boot. The Pig sleeve was covered in rubber spikes, again looking for maximum grip, control, swerve, and comfort, similar to Predator football boots but at a much lower price range.

However, the boot design has not yet made it into production, and the initial buzz surrounding it has gone quiet. New information regarding The Pig is hard to come by – feel free to comment below with any updates.

Adidas Predator football boots continue to push the boundaries of football boot design. Craig Johnston summed up his quest for the perfect football boot in an interview with Alyson Rudd in The Times (March 8th, 2004): “Can you make a boot that makes someone a better player? No you can’t. But you can offer more of what a player wants — more grip, more swerve. He wants more of the sweet-spot feeling — when you hit it and you know it’s going in.”

The copyright of the article Craig Johnston's Predator Football Boots in Soccer is owned by Tony Dunnell. Permission to republish Craig Johnston's Predator Football Boots in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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