Gola began in 1905 in the Northamptonshire village of Bozeat, originally trading as the Bozeat Boot Company after making its first handmade football boots that May. It built its name through the first half of the century supplying British athletes with cleats and trainers, surviving two World Wars before becoming one of the country's leading sportswear brands through the 1960s and '70s. The Jacobson Group bought Gola in 1996 and relaunched it in the early 2000s as a retro sports-fashion label, the identity it still trades under.