Adidas and Puma have been two of the biggest names in sports shoe for over 60 years. Since 1928 they have shoes for Olympic athletes, World Cup winning football stars, Muhammad Ali, hip hop stars and famous rock musicians from all over the world. But the story of these two companies begins in one and the same house in the town of Herzogenaurach in Germany.

Adolph and Rudolph Dassler were the sons of a shoemaker. They loved sport but they always that they could never find comfortable shoes to play in. Rudolph always said, “ You cannot play sports wearing shoes that you’d walk around in town with.” So they started making their own. In 1920 Adolph made the first of athletic shoes with spikes, produced on the Dasslers’ kitchen table.

On 1st July 1924 they a shoe company, Dassler Brothers Ltd. The company became successful and it provided the shoes for Germany’s athletes at the 1928 and 1932 Olympic Games.

But in 1948 the brothers started . Nobody knows exactly what happened but family members have suggested that the argument was about money or women. The was that Adolph left the company. His nickname was Adi , and using the first three letters of his family name, he founded Adidas.
Rudolph across the river Aurach and founded his own company too. At first he wanted to call it Ruda, but he called it Puma, after the wild cat. The famous Puma of the jumping cat has until the present day.

After the big split up in 1948 Adolph and Rudolph never talked to each other again and since then their companies have been in with each other in the world of sports. Both companies were market leaders for many years, Adidas has always been more successful than Puma. In the 1970s the two German companies got competition from new sportswear firms in America, Nike and Reebok.

The terrible family argument should really be forgotten, but ever since it happened, over 60 years ago the town has been split in two. Even now, some Adidas and Puma don’t even talk to each other.