Real Madrid paid £25 million for David Beckham as much for his ability to shift shirts in Asia, it was reported, as for his expertise at crossing. The introduction of footballers’ names on their own kit and, subsequently, on those of replicas worn by supporters seems to be another masterstroke by the sports marketing gurus. Yet, as a commercial phenomenon, it happened by accident.

It is the tenth anniversary of the first sighting of players with their names across the top of their backs, and in that decade it has been easy to forget that the concept was brought in merely to help fans to identify the players.

“It would be great to say there was a far-sighted plan that this would tap into a huge commercial market, but that wasn’t the case,” Trevor Phillips, the Premier League’s commercial director at the time, remembers. “No one in those days really thought of it from a commercial point of view. The days of Beckham shirts selling by the millions were a long way off.”

The idea, long used in American sports, was designed to help spectators at the grounds and television viewers. “It coincided with the time when television was changing in the way it presented the game,” Phillips said. “New camera angles were being introduced and the producers wanted to give out more information to the public.”

The experiment began at a 1993 league cup final between Arsenal and Sheffield Wednesday, and it was repeated for the FA Cup final of that year, which also featured those two sides. The Premier League was sufficiently impressed to introduce the concept at the start of the 1993-94 season, its second year of existence. Now supporters could not only identify with their club by buying the shirt, they could also align themselves with their favourite player by having his name between their shoulders.

Given that football supporters tend to be conservative, the advent of names on shirts brought a certain amount of protest, but there was hardly uproar.

“I don’t recall there being any fierce opposition,” Phillips said. “There was a traditionalist opposition, which you will always get, and also an element of opposition from the cost point of view.”

The move drew firm approval from Martin Tyler, Sky Sports’ leading football commentator. “From a commentator’s point of view and from a fans’ point of view it’s great,” he said. “It was against tradition, and I’m quite a traditionalist, but I was in favour straight away.” There was some apprehension at the outset, though. “It was a bit of a gamble at the time, because of the administration of it,” Tyler said. “If players were brought in at short notice, what happens if that player didn’t have a shirt with his name on? But the kit men do a fantastic job.”

Phillips, who last year began his second spell in charge of South Africa’s Premier League, feels shirt names have become entrenched in football. “It’s difficult to imagine a game without it now. I was watching Tottenham against Kaizer Chiefs in Cape Town the other day and as is normal at pre-season games the Spurs’ guys didn’t have any names on their shirts. They had several young or new players and I was thinking ‘who on earth are they?’ ” Another aid for spectators has been squad numbers, which were brought in by the Premier League at the same time as shirt names. Whereas fans and commentators needed to write down the changes to the predicted 1 to 11 that had appeared in the match-day programme, the fact that each player kept the same number throughout the season, as indicated in the programme, removed the need for a pen at five to three on a Saturday.

Furthermore, it reflected the changing nature of the game and the disappearance of the day when the same XI might constitute a team for much of the season. “It was a time when squads started to be an established part of the game,” Phillips said. “Squads were getting bigger and more substitutes could be used.”

A drawback is that many numbers now give no sign of a player’s position on the field. For example, whereas a left back would traditionally wear No 3, players filling that role use anything from No 4 (Wayne Bridge at Chelsea) to No 77 (favoured by Francesco Coco, the much-travelled Italy international).

A Premiership side fielding numbers 1 to 11 in a game is almost unheard of now. Tyler pointed out that the last such instances involved Charlton Athletic, who managed to select a starting line-up with the traditional numbers in each of their first two Premiership games of the 1998-99 season.

But while some traditions end, others start up and become established. Ten years and counting since their arrival in the Premiership, it seems that names on shirts will eventually be viewed as a quaint footballing custom.

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