Premier and Football League 2004-2005
By 2004 the Premier League had become one of the strongest and most successful
in the world, generating enormous sums from TV rights and sponsorship. The
Football League clubs benefitted from a TV rights deal with ON Digital,
but when the consortium led by ITV collapsed, many clubs faced severe financial
problems. At the same time, Nationwide Building Society decided to end their
sponsorship of the Football League. Coca Cola stepped in and the League
attempted to reinvent itself as the home of grass roots football. In the
process, the Divisions were renamed once again. Two clubs now exchanged
places between the League and the Conference each season so the lower divisions
now included some unfamiliar names and colours. Generally, kits were a great
simpler than they had been a decade earlier, with discrete piping and straighforward
collars. Stockings now featured all sorts of innovative features, including
badges, club names, vertical stripes and contrasting reverses.
