When Shorts Were Short S3 E10 - John Barnwell

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.

For a generation of football fans, most likely for those of you listening to this show, despite a strong playing career, this week’s guest is best known for managing one of the historically big names in English football to a surprise cup success at the start of the 80s when the club was trying to drop anchor in calmer waters after bouncing back into the First Division after relegation in 1976.

John Barnwell had succeeded Noel Cantwell as Peterborough manager and in his one and only season at London Road, the club narrowly missed out on promotion to the second division before a dispute with the board led Barnwell to Moulineux, where he replaced Sammy Chung as manager after Wolves made a poor start to the 1978-79 campaign.

In what was an eventful reign that lasted just over three and a half years, Barnwell led a club that was still in Stan Cullis’s long shadow to two FA Cup semi-finals, a top six finish, League Cup success over European Champions Nottingham Forest who were looking to lift the trophy for a third success finish and Europe, but his greatest victory was arguably surviving a near fatal car accident that had, as we’ll hear, an even darker element to it.

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