ADIDAS and LIVERPOOL FC. A Cultural Impact on Fashion Article.

So adidas will become Liverpool FC’s new kit sponsor in 2025. It will be 13 years since our idols last pulled on the three stripes of the German behemoth and now seems like the ideal time to look back at Liverpool’s connection with the label.

2006 to 2012 was the brands last spell at supplying one of the worlds best supported clubs. The first spell started in the Double winning 1985/86 season before ending in an unsuccessful 1995/96 campaign before Reebok came on board. But did you know that Liverpool’s affiliation with Adidas goes back even further, to the late 1970s in fact. Although we would have to wait until 1985/86 before the likes of Rush and Dalglish would be gracing Anfield in the adidas trefoil logo, the fans on the terraces had long since taken the brand to their heart.

The adidas trefoil T-Shirt had become the Summer staple of 1977 for kids on Merseyside in an era when not many pieces of clothing had a sewn on logo, and, it was available from your mums catalogue, meaning the price of the T-Shirt could be paid off weekly.

The year is 1977, Punk has started to influence young rebels across the country. Narrow jeans had replaced wide flared jeans, mohair jumpers became a ‘must have’ item, but as the rest of the countries youth spent their

dole [unemployment] or Pocket money on Dr Martens Airwear boots, kids on Merseyside opted for sensible footwear, which for us was a pair of Adidas training shoes, or ‘trainees’ as we called them. Ideal for playing football in the street after school and comfortable for wearing on the terraces at the weekend.

Why adidas? you may ask. One can only guess that with Sports Shops having a very limited supply of sports shoes to choose from, the adidas Samba and Bamba were seen as the best due to them being made of leather and with them being the most expensive at approximately £20 for the Samba. A kind of ‘kudos’ emerged if you had the best style. The average wage at the time was £70 a week for adults, but as most kids, who did work, would have to do an apprenticeship, they would get paid maybe £30/£40. So spending £20 of your hard earned cash on adidas trainers would get you noticed.

Before 1977, no one in the UK or possibly the World wore training shoes or sportswear on the streets. Most City Centres only had 3 or 4 Sports Shops and everything for sale was for athletes. Training Shoes sat next to Cricket Bats and Balls, which sat next to Tennis and Squash Racquets, etc etc. Kids weren’t supposed to be wearing these Sports shoes to go to Anfield or other Stadiums around the country. As the Liverpool scallywags attended LFC games word spread that these young fashionistas were wearing adidas ‘Trainees’ and within months the three stripes could be seen on most youngsters on the Anfield Road.The Training Shoe had become a ‘must have’ fashion item. A new youthculture was emerging and it was starting here in Liverpool. adidas was ‘holding court’ though, every young lad wanted them. Soon adidas Stan Smith were the latest fashion statement and then the landscape changed. Liverpool fans were able to follow their club around Europe and newer styles only sold on the continent were finding their way back to Merseyside. The highest price in the UK was around £20 a pair, whereas in Germany new Trainers with advanced technology were being made for athletes and the cost was approximately £35. I remember, in 1981, buying a pair of adidas Grand Slam from West Germany, which had pegs in the heel to help Tennis players spring around the court more comfortably. I was only getting paid £30 a week wages, but I had to buy them and I didn’t even play Tennis.

A year later a young Robert Wade Smith left his job supplying adidas to a shop in Liverpool called ‘Topman’ to open his own Trainer Sports Shop in the City Centre. He had seen how many adidas Trainers were being bought by Liverpool teenagers, but Topman had a limited amount of styles, so in November of 1982 his new store ‘Wade Smith’ opened with the best adidas styles he had brought back from Germany. Within a year it was the shop that everyone around the UK had to visit to get the latest three stripes. The fashion for wearing Trainers had now spread around the Country as other teams fans became enamoured with the Scousers sense of style. A new Youth Culture had been christened ‘Casuals’ and every club had their own gangs of teenagers dressed in adidas, Fila, Sergio Tacchini, Barbour, Berghaus etc etc.

The fashion for wearing Trainers has continued to this day with over 4 Billion Pounds worth of the footwear being sold in the UK every year. Thats a dramatic amount of growth that may well have been fuelled by a few young Scousers wearing adidas on the streets for the first time ever in the late 1970s.

As the 80s unfolded adidas would still be the predominant footwear on Merseyside but by the late 80s every fashion house from Prada to Hugo Boss and eventually Gucci would start producing Trainers as part of their Collections. Everyone including your parents and eventually your grandparents were wearing Trainers as Leisure/Street Wear and every brand did not want to miss out on a booming industry.

Throughout the 90s and early 2000s there was no acknowledgement from the media or high profile brands that the Casuals had a huge Cultural impact on society and the way people dress. They were more worried about being associated with the Hooliganism that was tied to the Culture, but I knew there was more happening than just the weekly fights on the Terraces. That was the reason in 2003/04 that I wrote ‘The Liverpool Boys are in Town’. The book highlights how the Culture had changed the High Street and Fashion forever. Now every Fashion house and High Street Shop sells Training Shoes and there are Sports Shops on every corner.Even International Artists have, in the last 20 years, started using Trainers and Streetwear as a source of inspiration for their art. as recently highlighted in the ‘Art of the Terraces’ Exhibition which myself and three other designersco-curated in Liverpool’s Walker Art Gallery.

Back in 2007 adidas opened an Originals Store in Liverpool and acknowledgement of Liverpool’s cultural connection to the brand finally came when they produced a Limited Edition ‘Liverpool’ Training Shoe. Only 100 were made and they were only available in the Liverpool store. Then in 2020 the Size? Store released another adidas ‘Liverpool’ shoe. limited in numbers to 2020. Size? have for many years been re-issuing many of the 70s/80s adidas trainers as collectors, fans and those having mid-life crises yearn for the nostalgia of their youth.

Besides major labels and stores now embracing ‘Terrace’ Culture we have high profile media coverage with the BBC acknowledging the ‘Art of the Terraces’ Exhibition and News Agency Reuters writing about ‘Terrace’ training shoes such as Samba trending.

The last 20 years. with the help of eBay, internet forums and websites has seen that nostalgia grow. My clothing label 80s Casuals [www.80scasuals.co.uk] became the first of many labels that are now known as ‘Terrace’ Brands. Inspiration was taken from that 80s period of wearing adidas and other related Casuals clothing on the Terraces. Our first 6 years was spent printing adidas trainers onto T-Shirts and we sold thousands as the customer started matching the T-Shirt with their Training Shoes. Liverpool Fans and adidas aficionados being the first customers to take the label to heart. I remember wearing one of our Trimm-Trab designs for the Istanbul Champions League Final in 2005. Over the years the 80s Casuals brand has expanded to included 80s/90s music and film related designs plus in 2012 we started a ‘vinyl only’ record label, releasing new music from Liverpool bands before producing film soundtracks never before released on vinyl.

As we prepare for a new adidas era at LFC there are still many fans of that 80s Culture. adidas is still worn, but I see mainly older guys who were around in those halcyon days being the ones still carrying the torch and wearing new Adidas trainers. They were innovators and their stories of travelling to Europe to bring back new clothing and trainers unavailable in the UK have been passed down to their kids. Some of those kids will wear adidas as its now ingrained in Liverpool fan culture but you also have those kids who don’t want to dress like their dads and they have their own style of tech gear and Nike trainers.

So as we look forward to a new chapter in kit sponsorship, it looks like the timing could not be better for adidas. With the club already making over £110 million a season in kit and merchandise sales from Nike, the new sponsor comes on board with Liverpools sales being the 4th best in the World after Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich. With adidas being a LFC fan favourite, those sales should be equalled if not bettered, plusthere’s a new fashion trend amongst the youth known as ‘Blokecore’, that is inspired by ‘Casuals’ which sees youngsters wearing adidas Trainers with Football Shirts. Sales in new and vintage football tops have sky-rocketed in recent years and if the trend continues, adidas Liverpool shirts will be a lifestyle choice for any young fan of the team.

DAVE HEWITSON 2024.

ROBERT WADE SMITH - THE FINAL CHAPTER Part 9

Q) When people talk about the old era of the casuals and the clothes that were worn then, do you take some pride in the role that you played in helping that?

A) Yes, it was typical Liverpool really. I don’t really take too much claim on it because the Liverpudlians created the market. It was fantastic, I am proud that Wade Smith was very much a part of that 80s and 90s thing. In Matthew Street we opened a floor a year in that building right through the 90s and sales were a million pounds turn over in 1989. By 1995 I think we made around seven or eight million pounds in that five year period in sales in one building consisting of five floors. We then opened the sportswear building and the junior building and it all started to grow too quickly.

As it happens we sold out to Arcadia because it was going to bust me back in 1999. I sold out in 1998 because we needed deeper pockets, the tiger’s tail got too big really. I think it was very typical of the fashion world to grow too quickly. I have learnt a salutary lesson really, that if you want to build a business over a lifetime you are better off growing it one foot in front of the other in a slow way. I mean this whole meltdown in the banks and the crisis that we have got now is typical of too much boom. Inevitably it was going to bust and I think the recession is probably a good thing in the longer term because people have got to get back to growing businesses organically rather than funding out of debt and making businesses too big.

Q) For all what you have achieved in business do you think in a small way you owe a debt of gratitude to those Liverpool fans. Those original pioneers who went out there and.... (Robert jumps in)

A) Yeah, big respect, big respect. Those lads know who they are. Those five lads that were in Ostend. And I’ll say hello to them. In-fact two or three of them were Evertonians and they were brilliant lads in the sense that they always pull my leg for years afterwards and they were quite chuffed they were a part of it and I was quite chuffed as they helped me get started and introduced me to the importance of going off and bringing in the rare imports. Within week three I realised that I had to get out and do what the lads were doing and get out there and do some grey market trading, parallel trading.

Hundreds of Liverpool supporters created the cult, the boom and Wade Smith. For every five thousand lads that were travelling with the club there were another fifty thousand lads back home who wanted the gear so we were serving the other ninety per cent who weren’t able to go off travelling with LFC, so I suppose I was selling to the thick end of the wedge and the lads were selling around their mates. But I had made it into a bigger business so yes I do have some gratitude for that, yeah.

ROBERT WADE SMITH 2009

ROBERT WADE SMITH - LIVERPOOL SELLS MORE TIMBERLAND THAN ANY OTHER STORE WORLDWIDE Plus MEGA BRANDS. Part 8.

Q) Do you think the hierarchy at adidas realised what goes on in the markets of the UK, and thought, Lets push certain items towards the UK because this is happening? What I’m thinking is in the mid 80s didn’t they start bringing out leisure trainers. Trainers that weren’t specifically for playing tennis in any more, they were more for walking the streets.

A) There is no doubt that adidas slightly fought against it in a way as they were number one for sportswear, they were a purist sports company. But it was such a huge development. I think adidas UK wholesale was about thirty million pounds in 1983/84 so that’s sixty million retail. But by 1998 when I sold Wade Smith adidas were doing three hundred million just in UK wholesale, that’s more than half a billion in retail. Nike and Reebok were doing the same also. It was just a phenomenal wave of growth, rising ten fold, so they had to let go away from being the purist  sports company as Nike did too, to become a leisure industry brand. It was a street growth where an industry couldn’t fight against it. It became dependant on it, in actual fact adidas very nearly went bust in the early nineties. This was due to Nike and Reebok coming along which made the market shift into other jeans wear labels. It is a tiger’s tail really, if it becomes too big and it changed and then you find yourself in the fashion business, it is dangerous territory and adidas were always uncomfortable with it and to this day you do wonder if they are still uncomfortable with it.

Its better to be in a more stable sportswear market rather than sometimes being in this fast moving fashion market. I think they have got the balance about right these days.

Its quite nice for adidas who having founded the trainer business have got probably a third of half their business in the Originals which is nice. So they have got that heritage and they have also got the technology as well so they have got the best of both worlds.

Q) During those boom years, how difficult was it to keep up with the ever changing fashions? Like we spoke of a lot of labels and a lot of different trainers there.

A) Yeah, I think it was always very difficult. I could never quite spread the business. The reason why we closed Wade Smith in the end was because our brands really wanted their own stores.

In the mini-department store there was the Armani area, the Ralph Lauren area, the Paul Smith area, and obviously the sports building with the adidas shop and the Nike shop. But I could never get away from 80% of the business being in the top twelve big brands. Once they wanted their own stores, which many of them have now got, it is very difficult to keep up with. But we were always trying to develop new products.

The seeds that we were planting with Timberland and Rockport in the late eighties came to be credible businesses. I remember the founder of Timberland, a guy called Sydney Schwarz, who came over from America to see me when we opened the Timberland shop in the big sportswear building. He came over in 1996/97 when we did the outdoor athletics store. He gave me a Timberland watch with the Timberland and Wade Smith emblems. We were selling more Timberland shoes than anywhere else in the world so he wanted to come and visit this store that was selling, at its peak, one hundred pairs of Timberlands a week. You know that’s fifteen thousand pounds a week just on Timberland boots. So Sydney Schwarz came over thinking where the hell is this place? And we kept doing it with lots of things. Obviously the Trimm Trabs first and then the Marathon TR, and certain cultures like the Reebok workout and the leather classic. I think we sold something like five thousand pairs of leather classic from 1990-93.

So I could never get away from a big chunk of my turn over coming from certain items. The Timberland boot was just mind boggling really. Obviously Armani jeans was also a cult thing. I think we held the record in the world for selling more Armani jeans than any other store. You know, one hundred quid a pair. And we were selling them in 1990-91 right through the early nineties. The Ralph Lauren pique polo shirt, the Armani shirts, incredible businesses and later on the Prada shoes at two hundred quid a pair.

So we could never get away with certain items being a big part of the business. It was actually the Achilles heal it always was. My old chairman said to me when I left adidas, “What are you going to do if adidas open their own shop? Because you know it will put you out of business in a oner” To which I responded with, “Well I would have spread the business across many other brands by then.”

But even at our peak we had fifty brands from all around the world, all the best brands. But 80% of the business was coming from the top twelve mega brands. I was always a bit uncomfortable with it but that was the reality and like I say as soon as the brands wanted their own stores that was really the end of the Wade Smith. We had a wonderful time with it and we should have developed the Wade Smith brand more and we had done certain products like Wade Smith T-shirts, jackets, jeans, but it was only a tiny part of the business so we really should have developed that more. It is something that we would develop later on with all of my children, I have four children and they are all very keen to do the Wade Smiths brand for ourselves. I think that’s going to be an exciting era. Coming up soon.

ROBERT WADE SMITH 2009

ROBERT WADE SMITH - THE MARATHON TR CULT and a MINI DEPARTMENT STORE Part 7.

Q) When was Wade Smith’s peak of selling trainers?

A) Our peak trainer year was 1984-85. I think we did over half a million pound in sales in a back street shop in Liverpool. I seem to remember paying my whole years rent on Easter Saturday in 1984 which was an incredible thing. If you can imagine doing ten thousand pounds a week selling trainers out of a back street shop in 1984, it was a remarkable time. I mean I had been earning about four or five thousand a year as a rep for adidas but I think within three years by the time I was 23/24 we were making more than one hundred thousand net out of one back street shop. So that was the vintage year if you like, 1984/85. It was the last vintage year for the cult and after that it became mainstream and it spread across the UK and the rest of the world really and Nike and Reebok helped to stretch it into mainstream business really.

Q) You talk about 1985 being the peak year, and then the old trainer phenomenon became mass market, did you notice a change in the Liverpudlian’s attitude then? Were they not as keen to buy what everybody else was wearing?

The Reebok thing was a joint Liverpool and Manchester thing. Obviously Liverpool were way ahead of the rest of the UK but by about the beginning of 1981 Manchester began to follow very close behind. In-fact the big cult of the leisure shoe which adidas had was the Tenerife, Palermo, Korsika, which was quite an ugly German made leisure shoe but it became cult because Kickers was an ugly shoe and had this thing. The adidas leisure range was unbelievable in 1981-82. It was probably the reason why I set up Wade Smith. And Manchester followed soon after that. Obviously there was a competitive thing going on between the Mancs and the Scousers and forever more the Liverpudlians were wanting to move onto the next thing.

By the time I started and went onto the Trimm Trab thing which wasn’t actually something that happened in Manchester until a little bit later. The Gallagher brothers would tell you it was Manchester doing the Gazelle thing, suede Gazelle, where as the Scousers were doing the Trimm Trab thing and the Grand Slams. As the years went by in the 80s it moved across into top running shoes which we had a massive year with in 1984-85 with a shoe called Marathon TR which had the adidas logo on the sole. That had been around since the late 70s as the best running shoe in the world supposedly, but didn’t sell. A few years later I found three thousand pairs in Ireland of all places. I bought every pair for almost a tenner a pair, I shouldn’t say this but we basically nicked them off the Irish distributor, he had been sitting on them for three years in his warehouses in Cork. Michael O’Connor, a lovely guy, and I think I bought five hundred pairs and came back for the rest. Fifteen quid a pair to start with, we bought the two thousand pairs at ten pounds a pair. That was the last big cult adidas trainer. And I sold three thousand pairs at thirty five pounds a pair in one shop. I think that must be a record in the world for any one shop to sell such an amount. I mean who sells three thousand pairs of one style?

But after that it began to spread, obviously the Reebok workout thing came along and JD in Manchester and the Manchester thing picked up on the Reebok classics at exactly the same time as Liverpool.  And then there wasn’t much to choose from with the Reebok boom that went on in 1985/86. Then the Nike thing started to hit. And if you like that started to change and I think the Liverpudlians got fed up with the whole thing and it then changed to the Timberland cult which started to happen in the late 80s. The Scousers were buying Timberlands in 1986/87, again probably three years before the rest of the UK. But before that there had been a massive thing if you remember the adidas treckers, or trecking as it was called, and that came in about four or five colours. That was a hiking boot at fifty quid a pair, which was a ridiculous boot to be walking around Liverpool in. It was a move towards the hiker boom again four years before Fila came along. Reebok did a.. Was it the Rugged Walker? as a fashion hiking shoe and that created a trend away from the trainer towards a leisure more cleated sole thing which Timberlands obviously had. The adidas hikers and the rugged walkers,  then the Fila hiker came later. And that then changed the whole thing and began to spread the business and that’s why I went into the leisure shoe business, the Timberland, the Rockport, and then obviously the shoe business full on.

Through the 80s, again the Liverpudlians created a massive boom for the jeans wear labels. It went from selling Sergio Tacchini and Fila tracksuits and Lacoste in the early 80s, to then Liverpudlians going into Fiorruci which again had been happening big time in the late 70s in Italy, Chevignon in France, big jeans wear brands, Chipie, Diesel, they were all beginning to develop and Liverpudlians were three or four years ahead of the market. Out of that came the Calvin Klein, well actually Ralph Lauren first and obviously Emporio Armani. The Emporio Armani, or if you like the Armani jeans thing came on the back of the French and the Italian jeans wear labels so again the Liverpudlians were moving to expensive jeans wear labels three, four, five years ahead of the rest of the UK.

Q) When did you start with the clothing?

A) We realised that by the time we had opened up ten trainers stores around the North of England by 1988. In fact by January 1988 I decided to get out of selling from the other shoe shops because my two Liverpool shops made all of the profit, I think we made in the last three months of 1987, one hundred and fifty thousand pounds contribution from the Liverpool shops but only to lose money in Birmingham, Leicester, Sheffield. Other people like JD and All Sports, JJB, and Olympus, had opened shops in those cities, and by the time I got there I wasn’t that different.

The micro-market of Liverpool was still a one off. So I got my fingers burnt opening shops elsewhere. So in the January of 1988 Neil Cowan gave me my accounts on the 2nd of each month as always and from that moment onwards I realised we had to get rid of the shops, which I sold to ‘Sock Shop’ and ‘Body Shop’ who were all paying stupid money for prime sights. I knew I would go bust if I continued to over shop by competing. I remember bidding for a shop in Sheffield thirty thousand pounds premium just to get the keys for a lease just to rent the shop. Ratners bid one hundred thousand pounds on the same day which put everybody out of the market. I knew the game was up for opening shops as we couldn’t compete with those guys. So quite smartly we sold off all of our shoe shops. I had basically said to him  I wanted to open a mini department store, buy a big freehold on Matthew Street and sell off the shoe shops. Neil just said to me, “what do you mean? we are just going to do a complete U-turn and get out of the trainer stores and open a department store?”  So I responded with, “I think we just have to have one fantastic store in Liverpool and lets get out of everywhere else.” To which he said in his Yorkshire style, “You do realise this is going to bust us if it doesn’t work.” And it was a big risk and we agreed what we were going to do and so we went off looking for a freehold property and fortunately found that wonderful building on Matthew Street that became the mini department store that we created throughout the 90s. Luckily enough we sold all of the trainer stores in 1988. It took a bit of time and It was my first loss that I had made, which hurt quite hard but at least it transformed Wade Smith from then going into the jeans wear labels. We were the first to sign up Armani jeans, and then Ralph Lauren and eventually the likes of Calvin Klein came along and much later on obviously the Prada’s, Gucci’s, and the top Italian brands as well. The Wade Smith mini department store became a huge success throughout the 90s.

ROBERT WADE SMITH 2009

ROBERT WADE SMITH - BRAND AGENCIES Part 6

Q) Can I just ask you about the agencies that they have now in London and Manchester. If you want Fila or Tacchini you can go to Manchester to see an agency and order. In the early 80s were there any of them agencies in the UK? If you wanted the European brands like Chipie and Chevignon would you have to go to France?

A) I think the agencies for the European labels didn’t really kick in until the late 80s. Again, like with Fila and Sergio not being available in the UK during the late 70s and early 80s which Borg and McEnroe were wearing, it was the same for many designer jeans wear labels. But they quickly set up London agents. Once again the Liverpudlians had set the ball rolling. Armani wasn’t available wholesale until the Liverpudlians had established it. Armani had a stockist on Bold Street [Giancarlo Ricci] selling Giorgio Armani in 1982, Emporio didn’t open in London until 1983/84.  But I don’t think they set up the UK Armani jeans business until after that. So the Liverpudlians were buying it before it was available, there was a thread running through it really, trying to get the next exclusive label and there has been all sorts of labels coming out of Italy that were unheard of. Stone Island and things like that probably came out of Italy first. Unusual brands came along often three or five years before they set up the UK agencies.

Q) So what I’m trying to say is, were these agencies were being set up because of the fans going abroad, bringing stuff back. The brands were seeing what was happening and were saying, “lets get over there to the UK and set up”.

A) I think it would have happened anyway as the European market grew. When the UK went into the Common Market around 1970 there was a lag anyway. There was a good ten year lag. Exchange rates with the Deutschmark, the French Franc, and the Italian Lira were always fluctuating quite badly which made the cost of importing to the UK quite high. The Deutschmark would one year be four Deutschmarks to the pound and three or four years later it would only be two Deutschmarks to the pound. So you had those fluctuations going on but I think the general European market opened up probably ten years after the Common Market and the boom in everything that was German, French and Italian including obviously the car business. You know in 1975 there were probably four BMWs in the whole of the North West of England so it was running parallel to the European market opening up. So right through the 80s many of the exclusive labels began to establish agencies. The fact that the Liverpudlians were bringing it forward I think it certainly opened the eyes with opportunities for the Italian, French, and German labels like Hugo Boss and brands like that. So I’m sure that Liverpool helped with the emergence of that whole business.

And later on the American labels like Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein started to spread world wide. The Japanese thing never really took off, you know the Miyake’s etc. Asics Tiger were very slow to take off in sports. You know obviously Comme des Garçons and Yohji Yamamoto or whoever out of Japan never really took off. I don’t quite know why the Japanese thing never really did.

ROBERT WADE SMITH 2009.

ROBERT WADE SMITH - AS FOR OPENING A SHOE SHOP IN LIVERPOOL, YOU MUST BE F-ING CRAZY Part 5.

Q) What was it about adidas back then? Were there any other brands?

A) If you’re talking about adidas then Adi Dassler who founded Adidas was an incredible guy who innovated the whole sports shoe industry. And it’s well known that his brother Rudolf Dassler founded Puma. They built this incredible business out of Herzogenaurach in Germany and together they really innovated the modern development of the sports shoe. Adi’s son Horst Dassler was an incredible character too. He was the marketing guru if you like, the genius that got adidas the best advertising boards behind the goals in the early 60s which eventually advertised the adidas three stripes. They were so recognisable even on black and white television, well even more so on black and white television.

But to be fair to Adi Dassler he was a genius in terms of recognising the development of a sports shoe from a basic training shoe or basic football boot into something more technical. The technical development in sports shoes was really innovated completely by adidas, particularly through the early 60s and 70s.

The pinnacle of adidas was I guess the running shoe boom and the tennis shoe thing of the late 70s and early 80s. Then of course, Nike came along in the late 70s with a basic running shoe for the jogging boom in America, which then started to give adidas a run for their money.

adidas did get complacent. Sadly the son of adidas, Horst Dassler died in 1985 and actually the management at adidas lost a lot of direction after that. adidas changed the hubris setting in the late 80s and they were completely beaten up by Nike and Reebok in the late 80s and 90s. adidas lost ten years between 1985-95 but they came back strongly and I still think that adidas will eventually get back to being number one in the world. I think they are the originators of the whole business so they deserve that.

Q) I just wanted to ask you about Wade Smith’s Slater Street store. Was it specifically that area you were looking at?

A) Well I was hoping to get someone to back me including my own father who was pretty ruthless in reading me the riot act about starting a business. He always felt if you are going to start your own business you should start it yourself. So he was very anti “thanks dad”. He kept quoting me parables about how Ken Morrison had built up the Morrison’s business and that it was his mother and father who were the original Morrison’s, Hilda and Fred Morrison founded the company, they started from a market store in Bradford market, and they ran that store for thirty bloody years before they were able to open their own supermarket. So my dad was very much ‘if you’re going to do it then get a backstreet shop, live above it and do it yourself. Why would you want me to back you, if I’m backing you then it is my business then’. So he was pretty hard on me and the last phone call I had with him was, ‘listen mate, I’m not going to tell you. You’ve asked me about ten times in the last two years I’m not going to back the idea of opening a shoe shop. There are 2000 shoe shops going bust right now (early 1979 or 1982 or whatever) and there is no way I would put money into opening another shoe shop in Britain and as for opening a shoe shop in Liverpool that has already gone bust, you must be f’ing crazy’. And he slammed the phone down on me and I never spoke to him for about six to eight months so I had to start that business. I had to get a friend of mine to help me find some money. He became my business partner, a guy called Neil Cowan. He was an accountant and helped me get the business started.

We literally started with that £500. He helped to secure the original overdraft and we basically started from nothing. And that is the way to start. You know its better to start from scratch if you are building a business rather than getting a handout. If you get a handout then you can quickly squander it. The fact that we had to learn the hard way, the shop got broken into, we had to go off to Germany to buy thirty pairs first and then sell them, buy eighty pairs and sell them, and then go back and buy one hundred and twenty pairs. So buying and selling, buying and selling was the magic to accumulating the business. And I think, to this day, if the business is any good it should be able to fund itself. I wish we had actually funded Wade Smith all long ourselves but you become ambitious, you want to grow the thing which inevitably gets the banks involved. You become a hostage. I mean a Barclay’s director recently said to me, “Why would you want to become a hostage to a bank?” But you are, and when you are growing like we did, I think we did a million pound turnover in year four, and then two, four, six, ten million so on and so forth and obviously the bit in the middle about moving the trainer store to Matthew Street and the way the business grew came a bit later. But I think its always best to build a business out of your own money rather than borrowing too much money from the bank.

Q) These guys who were bringing in the trainers in the very early days of Slater Street, did they bring in any Fila or Tacchini  (I think that’s what he says, audio low on questions) then?

A) Those lads brilliantly made a living for themselves out of a lot of boot legging really and there wasn’t just half a dozen of them, there were a good couple of hundred, or maybe even a few thousand of them that were trading gear. That did cross over with Wade Smith. I never actually bought anything. I only bought those twenty five pairs from those lads that was at the very start of it and I then went off buying direct from the retailers in Germany. But those lads were always making a decent living for themselves with the Fila tracksuits, the Sergio Tacchini thing, the Lacoste thing, it went on for years really. It still goes on now. Not with those brands but.. you know.

Q) When you look back at the peak years between the late 70s & early 80s, do you think that is a period that is overlooked in terms of British fashion, the casuals?

A) Well I think the casuals went on a lot longer than anyone actually realised. It went on for a good 10/15 years in a way. But it was born out of the late 70s and out of that the Fila, Sergio Tacchini and Lacoste which was the casual thing of the late 70s and early 80s.

I think it was the Face Magazine wasn’t it? That wrote that article about 1983/84 and coined the ‘Casuals’ expression. And I suppose the designer jeans, the Chevignon’s, Fiorucci’s, Chipie’s, and Diesel’s were a part of a Casuals thing as well. But the true Casuals I suppose were Designer Sportswear. But it did go into Designer wear labels later in the 90s to top end Italian labels. So became far-reaching.

ROBERT WADE SMITH 2009

ROBERT WADE SMITH - BUILDING A BUSINESS Part 4.

Q)What was your initial stock? Did you go for any specific stuff?

A) Well again I was dependant on supply of the Peter Black range when I first started. So my first sort of stock wasn’t all that great. But I knew that the rare import thing was a big opportunity. What I hadn’t realised was just how many lads in Liverpool were wearing the Trimm Trabs, the Grand Slams, and the Zeldas, you know, where the hell were they getting them from? So I had my eyes opened when I actually started working in Liverpool.

Previously I was coming over once a week with fresh stock for the Top Man shop and I’d just stay an hour or two. When I actually opened the shop for myself and spent days and days observing how many lads were actually wearing rare imports it was an eye opener for me, the extent of how many lads were going to Germany and France and getting the stock previous to me opening. So it was pretty obvious I had to go off there too. In fact a lot of the lads didn’t want to say, and nobody wanted to admit where they got their trainers from because they didn’t want other people getting them anyway. The standard answer when I asked was, “Where did you get your blue and orange Trimm Trabs from?” and they would say Brussels. “Brussels mate.”

So when I got to Brussels there was absolutely nothing there, no Trimm Trab, no Olympia S, no Grand Slam, that was just the standard answer. So it was only when I met those lads in Ostend who had been out to Germany was when I really found out that I had to go out to Germany and bring in the German range.

In actual fact, Trimm Trab had been launched in the UK in 1977. Previous to that it was called ‘Jaguar S’, and that was a total failure in the UK. That sole unit had been a disaster and that’s why adidas UK didn’t want to go back to it.

It was really typical of the Liverpudlians, it was quite an ugly shoe really but the fact that you couldn’t get it anywhere in the UK made it more desirable really. So I suppose the Trimm Trabs second time around was fortunately for me, my big hit. In fact I think 80% of my first year’s business was with that Trimm Trab Olympia S sole unit.

Q) Where did you go in Germany? You weren’t going through adidas were you?

A) No, that was the funny thing. It was a strange thing really, we weren’t allowed to go and buy adidas trainers from other distributors, so I couldn’t go to the Belgian distributor, I couldn’t go to adidas France, or adidas Germany because the rules were that the UK distributors dealt with the UK market and UK retailers. But I was in such a hurry to push the range further but the UK management wanted to do it in their own time. They wanted to have control. So I was having arguments within the UK, both at Peter Blacks and Umbro, the other Adidas distributor, who were really pissed off that I was going direct to Germany and France and that caused big arguments and a big fall out between Peter Blacks and Umbro about the whole distribution of adidas. I actually ended up falling out with my old bosses by going off and getting rare imports. I really fanned the flames of that argument and I was ‘persona non grata’ with my own employees for two or three years. In fact some of my old contemporaries couldn’t wait for me to fail really, because I was so focused on parallel importing. But the UK management weren’t quick enough to feed the UK market. They thought the bubble would burst in Liverpool and I suppose I had to go out working for myself. I had to make my business work. So it was a difficult one, falling out with your leading supplier wasn’t a good idea. adidas themselves continued to support me for the next two decades and I built a fantastic relationship with adidas through the 80s, 90’s and beyond.

The arrogance that the management of the UK had, came back to bite them when Nike and Reebok came along. But the rare import thing, I had to go to retailers in Germany, retailers in France, retailers in Austria, and do deals with them. If I was buying four hundred pairs at a time I could get a twenty per cent discount. In fact one retailer from Munich would just add ten per cent to his cost. So I was getting nearer and nearer to the cost in Germany. And the cost in Germany was actually a lot less than the cost in the UK. So I had to break a few rules of the distribution and fall out with some people but you generally do when you are building a business.

ROBERT WADE SMITH 2009

ROBERT WADE SMITH - FOREST HILLS and THE BREAK-IN. Part 3.

Q) Just going back to Christmas 1980, adidas Wimbledon, and then the adidas Forest Hills , did they prove to you that people in Liverpool were willing to pay the highest prices?

A) That Wimbledon and Grand Prix thing was a classic case of better and better. The Stan Smith thing had been incredible at £19.99, more incredible was that next step from £20 a pair to £30 a pair the following Christmas, so pre Christmas of 1980 we stepped up to selling hundreds of pairs of Grand Prix and Wimbledon which were the best tennis shoes in the world at that time. They were £35 actually, £34.99 for a pair of Grand Prix or Wimbledon. And that step up to £34.99 was probably a bit too far for our managing director Peter Black. He said, “look lets price them at £29.99 and sell volume” and that was just an incredible situation to be selling thousands of pairs of Wimbledon and Grand Prix at £29.99 when you consider that the average trainer price in the UK was £17 at that point. Even in Glasgow or wherever, certain markets trainers were still at £15. In Liverpool they were £29.99 a pair, nearly double the national average. So from there it spread wider to anything they could get. Obviously the Grand Slams came along but the Forest Hills were even more remarkable.

I’ve got a pair of the originals, (picks up shoe and shows it to camera), this was sitting in the warehouse at Peter Blacks. It was the most expensive tennis shoe in the world at that time, it had all sorts of technology with a breathable sole, the holes in the sole allowed sweat to get out but not the water in. The inner sock even moulded to the shape of the foot.

It was only targeted at the top tennis clubs, like the Queen’s tennis club. Wherever the best tennis clubs where, 30 or 40 pairs went out to them but they couldn't sell them at £40 a pair.

As soon as we put them in the Top Man in Liverpool in the Christmas of 1980, and then through to 1981 as well, it was the break through if you like, the phenomenon of selling a £40 tennis shoe at that time, which is the equivalent of selling a £150 trainer today, it was just unreal really.

The following year adidas launched the first $100 sports shoe in the world, it was called Zelda. It was made of pig’s skin. Reebok think they invented the garment leather if you like; the glove leather shoe with the leather classics and the work outs but adidas had already invented it a few years before. They didn’t sell very well, especially in America, so we ended up selling the last of the stock at Wade Smith in 1982.

This was a £50 shoe in 1982. So if you like Liverpool took it to new levels. It began to spread when I started Wade Smith, obviously I went from fifty styles to over one hundred and fifty styles of adidas shoes from all over the world in that first year. And that was my big break through if you like, from taking it from a wall of trainers, to four walls of trainers in a shop with the biggest range of fashion trainers pretty much on the planet at that time because I knew where to get stock from, Germany and France etc, with imports from Ireland and we were even bringing stuff over from the States. Anything we could get our hands on in terms of imports.

Q) Why do you think nobody else caught onto this at the time?

A) There were people around doing it, well obviously in London they started around the same time, they were doing the running shoe thing. I think JD over at Bury again was just hitting that wave in 1981/82. Obviously we had been training like hell in Top Man in the two or three years previously. So when I started Wade Smith it was like I hit the ground running really. I took it from if you like, a wall of styles to the biggest adidas ranges from all over Europe.

adidas had factories in France, Germany, Austria, Yugoslavia, so production was coming from all over the place. So they tended to have a separate range for France, a separate range for Germany and I suppose I brought all those different ranges into the shop for the first time.

Q) Is it true that on the first day of opening, or the second day of opening the shop on Slater Street, the shop was broken into?

A) Yes that’s true. I had to learn quickly. Obviously I’d opened the shop, not even the side windows down Fleet Street were bricked up properly or roller shuttered. It was an easy take breaking into my side windows down the side street, so I don’t think we’d sold anything, I hadn’t dressed out the shop much and I was in the shop on the Saturday so we didn’t really open. And then I arrived on the Monday morning to find that half the stock had gone. There was about 30/40 burnt out matches on the floor in a pile so these lads that had broken in were trying to find more stock around my stock room. It was a bit of an amateur job but it was pretty soul destroying for me. It was the first time ever for me that I cried over a sort of crisis in my business and I guess the fact that I suffered that adversity actually on day one helped build a hell of a determination, a tenacity that I never lost from that point onwards. I had to pick myself up. Fortunately my insurance with Norwich Union was unbelievable I must say, I paid the £125 on the Friday and I was ringing them up with half my stock gone, I think it was a couple of thousand quids worth of stock that I hadn’t even paid adidas for, had been stolen. And Norwich Union paid that two thousand quid back about ten days later, in fact my bank rang me up to say I’ve had a good day. They said, “What’s this £2000 that’s landed in your bank account?” I said, “No, it’s the insurance claim”. So the bank was getting excited about the fact that I was having a good trading time.

Well, going back to the fairytale of the £800 on the second Saturday, we set a budget for the first year of twenty six thousand, and I think I was able to make about two or three thousand pounds profit from that. I didn’t pay myself a salary in the first year, Angie used to come up at lunch time to help me run the first shop from being on my own.

But the fairytale was I went to Germany two or three times before that Christmas with empty suitcases and came back, hired a van, went twice I think, bought one hundred pairs, came back, sold them, went back and bought two hundred pairs and we had done twenty seven thousand pounds worth of sales by the end of week seven by the time I had got to the Christmas period of 1982.

So I had done my first year’s budget within the first seven or eight weeks. So it was the most magic time of Wade Smith really. We did one hundred thousand in the first year, a quarter of a million the second, and so on and so forth. So it was a remarkable time.

ROBERT WADE SMITH 2009

INTERVIEW FOR LIVERPOOL FC SPONSORS KODANSHA

Despite Anfield being on his doorstep growing up, it’s somewhat fitting that Dave Hewitson’s first ever Liverpool match was actually an away fixture. A proud Liverpudlian who was among the first generations to follow The Reds’ into Europe en masse, his introduction to watching The Reds’ was a family affair that set up a lifetime of following his team everywhere and beyond. 

Taking a casual stroll around a sunny Stanley Park in the shadow of the ground, Dave lights up recalling his formative memories. “In the sixties a lot of guys around my dad’s age went to both Liverpool and Everton on alternating weekends but I was lucky because my dad swayed towards The Reds. One of my uncles would go to the away games and they took me to Burnley away in 1969 which was my first ever game and we won 5-1.”

Needless to say, that icy cold December night in 1969 at Turf Moor which featured Shankly-era legends Emlyn Hughes and Ian St. John lit a spark that’s still burning just as bright today. “I always wanted to go to the match from then on,” he explains as we round the Anfield Road end. “My dad used to go in the Kop and it would be swaying backwards and forwards so it wasn’t an ideal place for a ten year old - so he’d get tickets for the main stand for the European games.”

Although the overriding emotion is one of excitement, Dave paints a more intimidating picture of going to the match than you’d expect today. “I asked my dad to take me to more league games but there were bits of trouble in the seventies so he was a bit wary of it. Whenever you got the Liverpool Echo the first thing on the front page was about violence at the match but he eventually gave in and we used to stand in the Anfield Road end.”

“At first we used to take a stool from the house and I used to stand on that, I got a bit taller, I still needed something to stand on so we’d tape two blocks of wood together. When I got to the age of fifteen I wanted to go with my mates and I actually look back at my season tickets with my name and address on and they’re from 1978-1979 in The Anfield Road end. That was my first season ticket and I’ve got five or six in a row since the mid-eighties.”

Though his childhood and teenage years are riddled with enough memories to make the most casual of fans go starry-eyed - there’s one pinnacle that Dave wouldn’t trade for the world. “I was desperate to go to the European Cup final in Rome, I just remember pestering my dad endlessly. He says, ‘I’ll tell you what, sell your bike and do a paper round and get some money together.’ So I sold my Raleigh Chopper and on Monday we’re going to Rome by train.”

Seeing Liverpool lift their first European cup might have proved a night never to be forgotten, but having gone to every European cup final since, to take his own son the infamous night in Istanbul felt like something of a full circle moment. “I took him because my dad took me and that was the greatest memory you could create together. I wanted him to witness what I had as well. Imagine not taking him though and getting home, you’d be the worst parent ever wouldn’t you?”

Much more than just the match, for Dave and his friends, football culture was about the adventures shared, the memories made and in those days - what pair of trainers you could bring back to Liverpool. He explains, “In the early eighties, the fashion in Liverpool had totally changed, it was all training shoes, narrow jeans and wedge haircuts. Britain was in recession at the time so shop owners wouldn’t import the more expensive trainers. When we were going to an away game everyone would be dressed the same from Liverpool so you stood out.”

He explains there was a bit of rebellion at play in the fashion evolution - all of a sudden people didn’t want to look like their parents when they went to the match. “The trends for us were changing, you had punk coming in in the late seventies and that changed the landscape totally. After the fifties and sixties youth culture started and younger people had more of a say in what they wanted to wear. The shops were owned by younger people rather than these old outfitters.”

During a particularly bleak time back then, the match was all about escapism from the everyday - and that’s not changed much today. Dave explains how football can easily define your week. “You go to work, get home, have a bit of tea, but when the weekend comes we live for Liverpool FC. It makes up for a dull week especially if they win. It’s a part of going out, meeting the mates, having a few pints and sometimes the match even gets in the way of having a few drinks!”

As a much needed antidote to the masses of hooligan books that were hitting the shelves at the time, Dave wanted to shine a light on his own memories growing up and watching the match and penned his own book ‘The Liverpool Boys Are In Town’ in the early two-thousands. “I wanted to tell the story of Liverpool fans going to Europe and bringing back clothes that weren’t available here. You didn’t have to be a hooligan to be into the fashion.”

“You could go to the match, see what everyone was wearing and look for Sergio Tacchini or Fila. It was about belonging, it was your city and your club and you wanted to be a part of that. The response to the book was incredible, the older you get, nostalgia is amazing, it brings back so many memories.” More recently, Dave celebrated the casuals movement by putting on the Art Of The Terraces exhibition in the city’s Walker Art Gallery which was a roaring success, focussing on the fashion of the era and the art it’s since inspired.

“That was the pinnacle of everything really. It’s one thing putting words in a book but putting it into a major exhibition at a national gallery was unprecedented. People from all over the world resonated with the exhibition and it unearthed so many memories for people of all ages. I feel incredibly proud, we need to continue building on that culture and celebrating it.”

Dave runs the clothing label 80scasuals where you can also purchase his book 'The Liverpool Boys... The Birth Of Terrace Culture.'

DAVE HEWITSON. LIVERPOOL FC SPONSOR KODANSHA. 2024

Photographs by Marc Sumner 

Text by Rhys Buchanan

ROBERT WADE SMITH - STAN SMITHS and TRIMM TRABS Part 2

Q) Take us back to pre Christmas 1979 and tell us the story about Stan Smiths and the popularity of the trainers back then.

A) Well obviously Stan Smiths was the first of the tennis trainers, the breakthrough from the Rom’s and the Sambas. So in 1979 it kicked in with the Stan Smith which became the first big cult.

There had been a bit of a fashion thing going on with ‘Kickers’ and a brand named ‘Kios’ which was a copy of the Stan Smith, but the Stan Smith was the real thing. Kios were £15 while the Stan Smiths were £20. I think in the Christmas of 1979 we sold something like 2000 pairs of Stan Smiths so it was the first big cult trainer in the UK.

Q) Do you think the desire for the rare trainers or rare items of sportswear was greater in Liverpool, and has always been greater in Liverpool?

A) Well I certainly think that with scousers travelling around Europe, it opened up the whole thing for getting rare trainers. It was brilliant the fact that you couldn’t get them in the UK, and because you couldn’t get them it made them more desirable. So there was a race all the time. Obviously people might go to London to get a pair of Diadora Bjorn Borgs, and people like Borg and McEnroe did set a trend for expensive tennis trainers, expensive tops and tracksuits, Fila and Sergio Tacchini etc or whatever McEnroe was wearing. But non of that expensive Italian sportswear was available in the UK so there was a race to not just go to Lilywhites but to go to the big Sports Shops in Munich, Milan, and to bring back as much expensive gear as possible, then sell it to their mates which paid for their next trip. So there was a lot of trading going on amongst the Liverpudlians with the gear that they brought back that would help to pay for the next trip. I mean how many trips did Liverpool make in that five year period from 1977-82?

I didn’t start my shop until 1982 but the whole thing, the cult was already happening. I came in on it when the UK only had forty adidas styles. I recognised that the rare ‘import’ thing was how I would get my business going. So the timing really was lucky for me.

Q) How would you have recognised that? You say you realised it was happening in Liverpool?

A) I was lucky I was in the right place at the right time, I mean I wanted to start my own business at 17, it was my father that persuaded me to go and get some experience with a big company like Peter Blacks and adidas but obviously I was running up to start my own business whenever I could, whether I was 18, 19 or 20. In fact I started Wade Smith when I was just 22 in 1982.  The fact that the trainer boom was happening around me was just opportunism from my point of view. Anybody else with an entrepreneurial flair would have done the same. If you were going to start a trainers store, where else in the world would you start it other than in Liverpool?

So I packed my bags and moved to Liverpool, Angie, my wife, my girlfriend at the time moved over with me and we literally set up the backstreet shop on Slater Street. We started with £500 and lived in a bedsit for the first six months of our lives. And those fantastic trips I made with the empty suit cases to Brussels are possibly the most magic moment of all and a few of those lads in Liverpool remember the day that I met the five lads sitting on their Head bags full of gear in Ostend in November 1982. They had been out buying all the stuff in the sales in Cologne, Munich, and they had a load of gear. It is true that I bought my first twenty pair of Trimm Trabs in all those different colours from those lads in Ostend. The following day I sold every pair, putting £800 in the till on only my second Saturday. I took £141 in my first week, then took £800 on the second Saturday thanks to the five lads. I used to bump into one or two of them who kept reminding me that they started Wade Smith’s and not me so I still thank those guys.

ROBERT WADE SMITH 2009

ROBERT WADE SMITH - PETER BLACK and TOP MAN Part 1

A few years back I, along with Mark Platt of LFC.TV, visited Robert Wade-Smith at his home in Caldy on the Wirral. We spent a couple of hours in his company interviewing him on his life, from the early beginnings of working for Peter Black in Keighley to opening the Wade Smith Store on Slater Street in 1982 and through to it's demise in 2005. Here is a short excerpt from that interview.

Q) Just tell us a bit about how you got into the fashion industry initially.

A) I was lucky enough to do my training before the Wade Smith business started with a company called Peter Blacks in Yorkshire. They had won the rights to manufacture the Adidas bags in the early 70s. They were a big manufacturer for Marks and Spencer, luggage, and other goods originally but their big thing in the 70s was the success of the sports bag. The holdall, the Adidas holdall.

When I joined the factory in 1977 to do my training they were producing certainly fifty thousand bags a week. So two or three million bags a year were coming out of the factories. And with that success Peter Blacks were offered the distribution of adidas Sportswear throughout the UK, alongside Umbro who distributed adidas to the Sport Shops, whereas Peter Black distributed adidas to the Department Stores mail order business and the shoe trade, but my training was on the factory floor.

My start was actually on the adidas floor, I did about 4 or 5 different jobs in my first year from courting the adidas bag handles to putting the rivets on the bottom of the bags. I learnt the business initially in the factories. I went to the adidas warehouses the following year for a year and then they put me on a sales course and then they put me on the adidas concessions business. The adidas concessions business had 20 concessions around the UK in Top Man stores?

Q) Why do you think adidas was so special in Liverpool, what made Liverpool different?

A) Its well known the fans of Liverpool Football Club were travelling around Europe, and there would probably be at some point maybe five thousand of them, there were certainly two or three thousand regulars travelling around Europe, to places like Paris, obviously Bayern Munich, and the Italian clubs. So there was a lot of Liverpudlians travelling.

They were then introduced to the more expensive trainers, running shoes, tennis shoes in Germany and France at the time. Which adidas hadn’t been able to sell that well in the UK market. Obviously Liverpool changed all of that.

Q) Didn’t the ‘Top Shop’ store bring over any of these expensive, modern adidas, or even Peter Black?

A) I mean our range for the UK had about forty styles and once the Top Man Liverpool thing really started to ‘kick in’ it was obvious we had to start bringing in some special imports from likes of the Austrian factories, French factories, and German factories.  So we began to bring in some of the top tennis shoes, obviously after the Stan Smith boom in 1979. The following year we started bringing in the Wimbledon’s, Gran Prix’s which were the thirty five pound tennis shoes that supposedly the UK market wouldn’t be able to sell.

But obviously Liverpool changed that and from there we began to expand the adidas Top Man range from say twenty styles to around forty of fifty styles.

Q) Did you have any say on that matter?

A) Well, it was slowly slowly, obviously when I started Wade Smith my big break-through was to bring the whole of the French and German top end styles in as well, so I took the UK market from maybe forty/fifty styles to one hundred styles.

We argued a lot with the management at adidas to expand the range, they thought it was a bubble that would burst and that could be damaging for adidas. Certainly adidas in Germany were very nervous about selling running shoes in Top Man stores or tennis shoes in Top Man stores when really they were supposed to be selling the leisure adidas shoes, like adidas jeans for instance, or Samba or whatever.

Obviously with the Liverpool thing, the Liverpool market created the cult for expensive designer trainers that were sold as leisure rather than sport. But adidas were always at odds with it because they didn’t want to undo their heritage for sport.

But they couldn’t stop it, once the Liverpool thing got moving, they couldn’t really stop the Liverpool boom that happened in the 1980s, which went from people owning less than a pair of these to everybody having two or three pairs in their wardrobe.

Infact in America they had a situation where so called Americans would have two pairs of trainers in their wardrobe and the Brits only had half a pair, I don’t know who was walking around with half a pair. We were supposedly miles behind but Liverpool actually at that time when the Americans were buying trainers big time, Liverpool were actually ahead of them. Everybody in Liverpool had two or three pairs of trainers in the late 70s and early 80s.

ROBERT WADE SMITH 2009

How The 1970s Golden Era Of Wimbledon Changed The Face Of High Street Fashion And Inspired The Casual Culture

Let me take you back to the mid-1970s.Yes, as you’ll probably know, everything was in black and white, including many TV sets, Europe seemed a thousand miles away, your dad always seemed to be on strike, but we were kids on the streets of Liverpool and as long as we could play out with our mates, we didn’t have a care in the world. No mobile phones, games consoles, 200 TV channels or Betamax video recorders to act as a distraction. Well not just yet anyway.

We played sport most days, football during the winter, bike races on the road during the summer. I even remember a week in 1976 when about 12 of us did the Olympic Games. Sprints, long distance races around the block, the long jump, you name it and we did it. I’ve never been so fit and then there were the games of tennis on the road. Chalk lines for the court and not even a net. Just keep an eye out for approaching cars. My sister's cheap Dunlop tennis racquet would suffice. Tennis was part of her school's curriculum, and it wasn’t even a posh school. That’s how much the sport had been taken into the mainstream.

1977 became a momentous year in the world of tennis as we moved from the roads to a concrete court with nets in a small park not far from our home. Well, I don’t think that was as momentous as Virginia Wade winning the Women's Wimbledon Championship in its Centenary year. The nation became enthralled as the BBC covered each and every game. The Men's title, that year, was captured for the second year running by a 21-year-old Swede by the name of Bjorn Borg. A year in which his wonderful Fila outfit had suddenly become endorsed with his own BJ initials. It was also the year in which Liverpool captured their first European Cup in Rome as 26,000 travelling Scousers, including this 14-year-old, descended upon the Eternal City. Tennis and Liverpool in Europe. There's a link in there somewhere. But more about label mania later.

The 70s saw tennis hit levels of popularity never before seen. It was only in 1968 that professionals had been able to compete in the Grand Slam Tournaments. Along with this came colour TV coverage, so as the best players in the world competed, exposure to the sport grew amongst the general public. Mix in a cast of colourful characters including McEnroe, Connors, Nastase and Borg, and it made for compulsive viewing. This phenomenal era saw these players at the peaks of their powers and epic battles ensued. None more so than the 1980 Wimbledon Final between Borg and McEnroe, not only recognised as the greatest tennis match of all time and one of the greatest sporting events ever, but also as a turning point in the counterculture phenomena now known as 80s Casuals. 

Yes, a game of tennis at Wimbledon was to inspire a generation of young upstarts and its part in the evolution of the High Street needs to be told. By 1980 Liverpool fans had taken it upon themselves to start wearing training shoes on the streets, something unheard of prior to these years. Trainers were for sport, not going to the match or the pub.

The limited city centre sports shops sold the cheaper end of the trainer spectrum. Adidas Samba and Stan Smith were £20 shoes, Britain was in recession, but on the Continent, there was an array of £30/£35 adidas Trimm Trabs and Grand Slams all vying for the attention of travelling football supporters looking for superior goods and that feeling of one-upmanship. These expensive imports were intended for the very sport for which they were designed. Little did adidas, Nike or Diadora realise that the fad of wearing training shoes for every day use would lead to a new market for the sports brands, that of supplying training shoes for the consumption of Joe public.

In the following years on from that famous Borg v McEnroe or Fila v Sergio Tacchini Final (as we remember it), sportswear in Britain became ubiquitous. Anything seen on the plush lawns of Wimbledon gained the attention of many. From Lacoste and Ellesse polos to Fila and Sergio Tacchini tracksuits or Diadora Borg Elite and Nike Wimbledon trainers, the Football Casual, with a little inspiration from the stars of the SW19 Postcode, started the last great revolution in mens clothing.

The designer sportswear only usually seen on the backs of highly paid superstars was now being hunted on the continent. Our holiday in 1982 would take in the joys of Venice, Italy, with only one thing on our minds and that was to pick up a Sergio Tacchini or Fila tracksuit. Between 1980 and 84 football fans invaded Europe in search of any sportswear that was ‘Made in Italy’.   

The British High Street would soon devour the latest fashion trend as new sports shops opened up on every corner and mens stores stocked the latest sportswear, plus almost every fashion brand would develop a sports range to feed the insatiable appetite of the Great British public. 

A lasting legacy from a golden era in the history of The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club.

DAVE HEWITSON. THE SPORTSMAN JUNE 2017

Blokecore

BLOKECORE;

It appears that the TikTok generation have their own style preferences when it comes to Football and Fashion. Vintage Football Shirts, Straight or Baggy Jeans and adidas Sambas. Sound familiar? Maybe not to the 20 something Generation Z brigade who are too young to have witnessed the original 30 years of hurt, never mind the 56 and counting, now. But us older guys have been there, seen it and bought the football shirt. Because as you will already know, Fashion is cyclical and in years gone by, the Blokecore look had another iteration in the form of Italian Serie A Football Shirts paired with adidas Gazelles. The Casual Culture of the 80s transformed into the Rave scene and then the Britpop era of the 90s with the Gallaghers being photographed in Man City tops whilst Damon Albarn pranced around in Italian made Tracksuit Tops with adidas or Nike Trainers. I even remember seeing a photo in the Arena magazine of a Paul Smith runway show where the model had a striped Man City top on. Casuals took it upon themselves to acquire the Italian Shirts whilst on the Continent.

Almost 30 years on and the wearing of Vintage Football Shirts becomes mainstream, but is it due to a few guys on TikTok in 2021 or is there a simpler explanation. In the last 5 or so years Football Shirt websites like ClassicFootballShirts.co.uk have exploded onto the scene with its vast collection of Shirts from Clubs across the globe plus author Neal Heard published ‘The Football Shirt’ Book with great success. With the exposure that comes with social media these two forms of consumer goods have brought a fine art form (the design of the Shirts), to the fore. Once the major brands see a way of making money, you can guarantee there’ll be some cool collaborations and new design coming our way. From as early as 2014, Surfing brand Stussy produced a ’NTRNTNL’ Soccer Collection with its own take on Football Shirts. Yes, a Surfing Brand. In the years since many brands have released their own designs, including my own 80s Casuals label as the popularity of wearing a Football Shirt grew. The major labels involvement can only make what may have started as an Underground movement, become ubiquitous. Hence, Football Clubs and Shirt makers putting a lot more thought into their seasonal releases. Check out the latest Venezia F.C. kits. Cool designs, cool photos, cool backdrop etc etc. An instagram hit. What’s not to like?

Also skintight jeans have had their day, so it makes sense that the hip youth will be onto straight and far more baggier jeans as the fashion houses across Europe feed us baggier, wider cut trousers.

Maybe I’m looking too deeply into the latest fashion trend. The stars may have aligned. Liam is back en-trend, adidas trainers are being released in their droves, kids want their own style, always something your dad wouldn’t wear and those Italian shirt wearing Casuals of the 90s are just a tad too old, and probably carrying a touch excess weight now, to ever look cool in a retro Sampdoria top. Hopefully the Lad Culture of the 90s won’t be repeated but the use of ‘Blokecore’ to frame the style doesn’t give us much hope. There’ll be those who’ll wear vintage or even new Football Shirts with adidas who won’t want the association with the ‘Blokecore’ branding, maybe they’ll be the ones who take any forthcoming Football style off in a new direction.

DAVE HEWITSON. SEASON FANZINE WINTER 22/23

Exclusive Nick Love 'The Business' Interview from 2005 for 80s Casuals

Exclusive Nick Love interview for 80's Casuals. 

January 2006 sees the release to DVD of 'The Business'. A journey of gangsterism from South London to the South of Spain. Set in the heady Thatcherite days of 80's excess, the film takes us on a trip of fast cars, money, drugs and clothes. Clothes maketh the man, but in this tale, clothes certainly maketh the film. The look that defined a generation is imaginatively captured against a backdrop of 80's music. Writer/Director Nick Love gives Dave Hewitson an exclusive insight into his love affair with 80's clothes and music.

Nick Loves two previous films were 'Goodbye Charlie Bright'. A humourous tale of two teenagers on a South London estate chasing girls, partying and being involved in petty crime. As with each of Nicks films, style is of the essence with Charlie and his mates taking pride in their designer wardrobe.

'The Football Factory' based on the acclaimed novel by John King follows three central characters who get their kicks [sic] from football violence. Love it or hate it The Football Factory stands as a social document of a 90's culture which many film Directors would not contemplate putting on the big screen.

As Thomas Dolby once said 'tell me about your childhood’

Thanks for your time Nick cheers dave

1] As a teenage Casual, who influenced you to dress that way?  

As a teenage Casual the people that influenced most were the older kids from our estate in Thames Street (Deptford/Greenwich area in South East London. They were all Millwall boys and were the first from our neck of the woods to get up to Nick Nacks and Lillywhites which were the two main places in London to buy casual gear in 79/80/81 

2] What was your favourite gear from the 80's?

My favourite gear from the 80's was both Fila and Sergio. I think the fact they were Italian tennis gear made them exotic. Fila BJ was the holy grail, Terrinda and the Sergio Dallas in light blue and cream was of another planet. I also liked some of the Fila colours from 83/84 when they got a bit nutty with colours, although I think I'd rather shoot myself than wear some of that gear now - but I still have a Terrinda in dark blue (worn by Charlie in the business) a Sergio Dallas and red Fila wham top (white stripes on left arm) in my wardrobe!

3] and the most expensive in your wardrobe? 

I think the Terrinda was the most expensive but as a kid I was a thieving little cunt so I didn't pay for much of it! 

4] Where d'ya get yer trainees from?

Back in the day I got trainers from Lillywhites or Olympus Sports on Oxford Street. They both had all the Diadora range and in those days you could slip on a nice pair of Borg Elites and do a runner from the shop (leaving a fucked pair of adidas Kick) for the shop assistants.

5] What were your first trainers?

My first trainers were always adidas. Kick, Samba, TRX, Mamba. The problem with Kicks were the toe scuffed badly the first time you played football in the playground with them.

6] Do you collect any of the sportswear from that era?

As I said before, I've still got a Terrinda, a bit of Sergio and a couple of BJ warm ups, but having made the business I feel like I'd seen enough to keep me happy for a couple of years. Sergio made some really cool limited Business tracky tops and I'll be keeping those for ever (but I may have one spare to stick on the web site if you want - for charity or something) 

7] Did you make any fashion mistakes?

Fashion mistakes? I'm from South East London. We never made mistakes. We ARE fashion.

8] Does the title come from the drug business or 'looking the business'?

The title of the business is supposed to be a bit tongue in cheek - a bit of everything really - the 80's was, as you know, the era of looking the business and hopefully the film itself, is the business. For some people anyway!

9] Also the saying 'Be Someone', how did that come about?

The 80's was always about being someone. I think Thatcher gave us the idea we could be anyone we wanted to be - although she was totally insane, she did have some bright ideas about the working classes being able to crack on in life. Also, it's a fantasy moment - and I always try to lift my films slightly out of the ordinary so they don't feel like depressing council estate dramas. All three of my films have odd moments and lots of bright colours which hopefully gives the audience a feeling of strange cinematic world as opposed to the norm. Things like 'Be Someone' really jar some people but others love it. You can only make what you see as good and not be swayed but what other people think.

10] Tell us about the clothes, where did the tracksuits and sportswear come from, and how much did you pay, was there any product placement?

The clothes essentially came from eBay and various shops from across the globe. I was buying gear from eBay before I wrote the script as I knew the film would be set in the 80's. Anyone that knows me knows I have an obsession with the 80's clothes and music and it was only ever a matter of time before I made a film using all my nostalgic knowledge! Sergio helped us out with some of their old gear but Fila had a fire at their museum warehouse in Italy so had none of their decent gear left. They did offer to buy any of the gear we used in the film from us as they needed to re-stock their warehouse. Sadly, apart from the boys at Sergio who are top lads, the people running the PR departments in these companies are young and just don't get the 80's fashion thing. People like you and me could be talking for days about the casual scene and they would be bored out of their fucking minds! 

11] The music is from different years throughout the 80's, so it's hard to define a year, but was there was a reason for this?

The music being from different era of the 80's was down to money. We just didn't have the cash to be picky. The whole film was made for under two million pounds and some bands from the 80's want £250,000 to clear just one song. We were really lucky to have EMI on board and bands like Frankie and Duran Duran gave their songs for a fraction of what they're worth. But it's all about cash at the end of the day.

12] At the start of the film, Charlie wears an open neck shirt, but by the end all the gangsters are running around in designer tracksuits, was this something you had in mind from the start? 

I suppose Charlie's appearance change is a metaphor for his state of mind. He starts off looking very cool and by the end of the film he's running around in a fucking awful adidas electric pink tracky. It was to show his decline.

13] You obviously wanted to do an 80's film with all the designer sportswear but was it always going to be a gangster film?

Good question. The main reason the film became a gangster film was because I wanted to set it outside England for the look. I didn't want to make a grey inner city 80's film (as we all remember it) - I wanted to make it look really flash and over the top so I decided to set it on the Costa del Sol, and as we all know there was a big community of gangsters living it up down there in the 80's - so that's why it was a gangster film. I wanted to show the rise and fall of Thatcherism and where better to do it than somewhere that was full of flash people with bundles of cash.

14] In hindsight, would you change anything about the film?

I would change the Carly character a bit. I'm crap at writing women and if I could do it all again, I would have made her a more rounded character, rather than a sex object. She should be brighter than she is and that's my fault. Apart from that, I love it. It's not everyone's cup of tea as some people hated the 80's and wouldn't watch on that aspect alone, but flipside to that coin is, a lot of people love it as it's the first retro film about the 80's in England, and as you and me both know from things like this website - it's a big movement thats growing and growing.

15] Any more plans for fashion type films as all three of your films are very style conscious?

My films will always be fashion aware as I am as a person. My next film Outlaw is about people from several different classes and walks of life, so it will interesting to approach the fashion in it. I am thinking Stone Island and CP goggle jackets, crossed with Turnbull and Asser suits and made to measure wing tip shirts! Should be fun.

16] What are your plans for 2006? 

2006 is all about Outlaw. Check out the website from jan 30th www.outlawthemovie.com - It's a film about England melting into a chav and gang run horror show, and a group of vigilantes that decide for a number of different reasons and motives, to form an outlaw posse and deal with the criminals themselves. It's a naughty story that needs to be told and the film will be full of the old ultra Violence.

17] and finally Nick, what trainers do you wear nowadays?

These days I'm a Spring Court man. Simple french pumps with peppermint soles to prevent smelly feet. Also, as I am from South East London, I still have white Reeboks!!!!!!!!!

Cheers Dave - Hope this is of some help to you.

Best.

NICK LOVE. 80s CASUALS 2005

Liverpool to Paris '1990 The Lost Weekend' by Paul Fitzgerald [Eat My Dog]

Nestled away in the back streets­ of the Pigalle, surrounded by the beauty and filth of Paris, the cafés, sex shops and strip joints, the guitar shops and dodgy jazz bars, and lurking in the shadow of Montmartre and Sacré-Coeur, sits the Royal Fromentin Hotel.

Housed in what was once a 1930s cabaret, Le Don Juan, the hotel retains the charm, and the spirit of those heady days with a quiet dignity. History hangs heavy in these streets. Streets where Picasso, Lautrec, Monet,Dali, Mondrian and Van Gogh lived, worked and sought their inspiration. And in the dark hours, the streets ran green with Absinthe. Hedonism was king.

So, it made perfect and fitting sense, given this backdrop of excess, for the Royal Fromentin to be the hotel of choice when the circus that was Liverpool 1990 rolled into town. A festival of Liverpool music, and all that entailed in the early ’90s. Six bands, three days, two DJs, one NME writer, one photographer, a graffiti artist, and a whole host of assorted wronguns, landed on the Rue De Fromentin and checked in on the morning of Thursday November 8.

The whole crazed scheme was the brainchild of Andrew Erskine, manager of Shack and Eat My Dog, who together made up the line-up for the Friday. Not a man to run scared from a challenge (after all, this is the man who made sure, against considerable odds, it must be said, that Shack‘s classic Waterpistol album actually got made and released). Adding in The La’s, The Boo Radleys, Dr Phibes and the House Of Wax Equations, and the hotly tipped perfect-pop trio, Top.

Andy Carroll and future Cream supremo James Barton DJ’d for the weekend, and Liverpool artist Luke Walsh spent the whole weekend working on an enormous graffiti piece in the venue, while the bands played. Acclaimed Liverpool photographer and filmmaker Mark McNulty was brought in to catalogue and capture the mayhem and the madness, and many of his images from the weekend can be found in his book Pop Cultured.

Arriving by train, plane and the back of a transit van, with a ‘Paris or bust’ attitude, they gathered in the ornate art deco surroundings of the hotel reception area early in the morning. It would be a full 12 hours before the first band was onstage, and yet the first thing former NME writer Kevin McManus, who’d been sent to review the goings on, remembered, was being handed a bottle of JD by one of what he later described as “scally comic strip rappers” Eat My Dog. We have no way of verifying whether this is true. But it is certainly likely.

As McManus pointed out in his review:

“It probably seemed a good idea at the time, but letting a loony Liverpool posse loose over a weekend in Paris, and placing everyone in the same hotel, was always going to be a recipe for madness and mayhem, with music an optional extra. It was like being on holiday with a bunch of cranked-up randy schoolkids with absolutely no excesses spared”

Just around the corner from the hotel, and 100 metres or so down the Boulevard De Clichy, stands the Moulin Rouge, one of Paris’ major tourist attractions, thanks to the Can Can, and Lautrec‘s love of the place. This iconic and legendary facade with its trademark rooftop windmill shows litle evidence of what lies beneath in the bowels of the building. La Locomotive, a well known and widely respected subterranean rock venue, slightly broken, unloved and rough around the edges, it made a perfect location for three debauched days and nights.

Rooms within rooms, and a surfeit of nooks and crannies made the venue all the more interesting. On the lower level, a giant hole in the floor featuring an ancient railway engine, it was the only part of the weekend that wasn’tgoing off the rails. Upstairs on the top floor was one of three bars, with a trippy ceiling lighting effect that changed colours through the rainbow, much to the delight of this gaggle of wide-eyed Scouse space cadets.

Thursday night’s gig, the opening night, featured Top and The La’s. However, the latter outfit were not at this time, widely known for actually turning up to their gigs, and sure enough, in that respect, they didn’t disappoint. They’d remained firmly put, back in Liverpool, ill at ease with the concept of a 9am soundcheck, and with bassist John Power nursing a fractured wrist following some sort of altercation which may or may not have included somebody else’s chin.

The ball, then, was firmly in the court of the recently signed three-piece power pop machine that was Top. This fine trio featured the much-missed Alan Wills, later founder of Deltasonic, on drums, Paul Cavanagh, now with Mike Badger’s Shady Trio, on vocals and guitar, together with Wills‘ fellow Deltasonic honcho Joe Fearonon bass. Top had been lauded and courted by just about every label in the country before finally signing to Island.

They were purveyors of sweet slices of harmonic and melodious perfect power pop, and Liverpool 1990 was only their second ever live show. It was easy to see how and why they’d started such a scrap in the industry, such was the immediacy and purity of the writing involved here, and, second show or not, their various experience in other bands meant that they more than cut the mustard live. With songs like No 1 Dominator and Buzzin in their baggy pop cannon, it’s hard to understand why Top didn’t reach far giddier heights and much wider appeal.

The rest of the night, and most of the Friday morning saw this gathering of wasted wastrels partying to Bartonand Carroll‘s soundtrack and stumbling around repeatedly declaring their undying love for each other, before decamping to the hotel as the sun rose over Sacré-Coeur, for, well, more partying. Much more, in fact.

A full day was booked in for Shack after their breakfast time soundcheck, as some bright spark had decided that the morning after the previous night’s excesses, it would be a spffing and sensible idea for them to hire scooters and drive around Paris, helmeted, hilarious and hungover, swerving in and out of the insane Parisian traffic and filming the action for a video for their next single I Know You Well. Off they went. Fingers were crossed they’d make it back in time for their headline slot. Meanwhile, somewhere in the Pigalle, Mark McNulty was grabbing whichever member of the throng he could for a photo session. Having done their soundcheck, Eat My Dog were up, and just about breathing, so off they went in search of locations, strong coffee and brandy.

Thankfully, no members of Shack were injured during the filming of the video, and come the evening, DJs were waking from their slumber, The Boo Radleys had arrived, as had Dr Phibes and The House Of Wax Equations, and the Scouse contingent began to gather around the bars and cafes of Montmartre, ready for Round 2, night two of the festival.

High on, erm, life and drunk on, erm, emotion, Eat My Dog took to the Locomotive stage, bedecked, as were most of the contingent, in the commemorative Liverpool 1990 event shirts that Erskine had made, and brought their Scouse hip house set to the adoring Parisian masses with stunning ease, and some impressive showmanship. Songs included a housed-up mash-up of the theme from Loveboat, as well as Shaft, a fine and fitting tribute to a well known Liverpool traffic warden, and rounding off with their own World Cup anthem.

Writing for the NME though, Kev McManus saw things slightly differently:

“Friday night saw scally rappers Eat My Dog, performing for the very last time, and I can say with complete confidence (and without offending the band in the least) that they will not be missed.”

Possibly the NME‘s man on the ground had been a little too ‘on the ground’ that weekend too, his judgement seemingly somewhat flawed. Perhaps he was right. Thankfully, we’ll never know.

Shack‘s performance was, for most of those fortunate enough to be present, a sublime and beautiful highlight of the weekend. At the top of their game at the time, they opened with the brilliant single I Know You Well, and the set included a handful of class pieces from the Waterpistol album, including Sgt. Major, Mr. Appointment, and the beautifully stoned and reflective Mood Of The Morning.

An incredible set of songs, representative of an incredible, and at the time unfinished album, interspersed with Mick Head‘s usual between song banter. The set was one of many high points in this extraordinary songwriter’s lengthy and varied career. Such a climax to the day called for more extreme partying, and many spread to the various bars and ante rooms of the Locomotive to party onwards. Again, the excess was all areas, and the hotel became host to the early morning session, until everybody pretty much dropped where they fell.

Saturday morning brought bad news. Mass eviction. The entire party, some thirty or forty tired and broken souls were cast, unexpectedly, out onto the cold Parisian streets of mid-November, without much, or indeed any, notice. The hotel staff had seen, and heard quite enough of this particular party of travellers, thank you very much.

Enough, it would appear, was enough.

Hopeless, dysfunctional and almost completely skint, blinking into the daylight, they stumbled onto Rue De Fromentin without even the slightest hint of an idea of what to do next. While The Boo Radleys and Dr Phibeschecked into the Locomotive for their early morning soundcheck, everybody else set about finding somewhere to spend the third night of this gargantuan Scouse rock bacchanal.

Twenty or so found a hostel just around the corner, in a dimly lit street that tended to see most of its action in the twilight hours. The kind of hostel that you could smell downwind, a few hundred yards before you arrived at its unlit and distinctly worrying doorway. Not the sort of place that could accurately be described as being in any way pleasant. The kind of place, in fact, you’d recommend instantly to someone you don’t care much for. Somewhere to dump bags and nothing more.

Still, Saturday night, and two more gigs to watch around the corner, so off to the Locomotive they went for the final night’s exuberance. The last hurrah, and the upping of the ante, before the wanderlust would come to its inevitable conclusion, and the journey back to Liverpool would begin.

An enthusiastic and appreciative welcome greeted the arrival of Dr Phibes And The House Of Wax Equations. Recently signed to Virgin, and already mid way through recording the Hypnotwister LP, their particular brand of psyched out blissful drone-driven heaviness rocked every part of the venue. Freaked out, and funked up, at their best, Phibes always were a formidable live prospect, and on the night, their free-form stoned and droned metal wig-out made friends out of strangers, and the rapidly gathering French audience absolutely loved every minute.

The Boo Radleys followed with their own-brand tight psych pop sound. Layered harmonies and screeching guitar solos cemented and celebrated the leaps from dub bass led groove, to full on, all-out rock n roll. With songs that wore their Beach Boys and Big Star influence on their sleeve, the Boos bore no shame in that, and proudly stood apart from the rest of what was at the time an incredibly healthy Liverpool music scene, and they closed their set set with a fuzzy wall of sound explosion of weighty Scouse pop music.

A fitting end to a weekend that Martin Carr of the band has scant recollection of “I remember one thing only. It was when I met my soon to be ex-wife”. Clearly he doesn’t recall his band drinking all of Eat My Dog‘s rider while they were onstage the previous night, but maybe we shouldn’t dwell on that.

And so, on the Sunday morning, bodies were pushed to the final limit. That of getting back to Liverpool, sleep was caught up on, on airport benches, underneath ferry lifeboats. Across the back seats of coaches, and on top of guitar amps in the dark and sweat-smelling rear of many a Transit van. There was talk of a repeat festival the following year, as the tired and emotional, dazed and confused renegade protagonists laughed their way back to Liverpool. And as Kev McManus said in the final line of his NME review…

“Still. Liverpool definitely left its mark on Paris – they say ‘la’ there all the time”

PAUL FIZGERALD [GETINTOTHIS] 2015

The 90s American Invasion.

 In early 1998 to much furore Tommy Hilfiger opened his first flagship store in Europe. London being his Capital of choice. But what significance does this hold with Liverpool and its band of travelling protagonists? Three years earlier New York became the destination of choice as the youth of our city once again needed to quench their appetite for stylistic pedantry.  

  The 90s had also seen Florida become the number one travel destination for Brits. With the dollar at a good rate of $1.65 to the £1 and air fares at a very reasonable price. Suitcases would be filled with Calvin Klein, Timberland, Gant, Bass Weejuns and Ralph Lauren at almost half the cost of the stores back home. A new concept on us Brits was the Outlet Malls with prices even more reduced than the Department Stores. This influx of Americana cast its spell on Britain not least the acolytes of this city.

  The draw of the USA was there for all to see. Florida may have been the place for a once in a lifetime family holiday but New York had a certain ‘je ne sais quoi’ about it. A good friend of mine was one of only a few to jet out for a weekend in early ’95. Another guy owned a small store and knew he could stock up on Lacoste as well as Hilfiger. They went to Macys and Bloomingdales and stocked up on Hilfiger jackets, jumpers and polos. They had paid £180 for flights, stayed at cheap digs and spent the least they could on expenses. Tommy Hilfiger was about to explode onto the Liverpool fashion scene. The jackets cost £80 in New York but back home could command a fee of £160/£180 depending on the style. 

  The closest Outlet Mall to Manhatten is Woodbury Common and it was here that besides a Hilfiger store there was also a Lacoste store. Lacoste would become massive in Liverpool over the next 10 years and would eventually open its largest independent UK store adjoining Wade Smith in the city centre. Wade Smith would sell that much Lacoste over the years that the president and owner of the brand  Monsieur Lemaire came for the opening of its new store and stated “Liverpool’s a bit like the Lacoste capital of the world and shows no sign of waning.” It could be said that he should have thanked the entrepreneurs who made these trips to New York for starting a trend.  

  It wasn’t long before my wife and I were flying across the Atlantic and touching down at JFK. Half empty suitcases in hand in readiness for some serious shopping. There wasn’t enough supply to deal with the demand, so even before we left home we had a shopping list of Hilfiger Jackets and Lacoste tracksuits. The profits made covered the weekend trip and we had a bit over to put towards the next trip a few months later. That’s how it was for a couple of years. New York 2 or 3 times during the year and Florida in the Summer. For us it was about the New York experience as well as the product. Our enthusiasm for travel bordered on fanaticism.  

DAVE HEWITSON 2015

2012 'EIGHTIES VINYL RECORDS' LAUNCH INTERVIEW

An Interview done with local Merseyside blog ‘Sevenstreets’ when our ‘Vinyl Only’ Record Label launched in 2012.

We’re in a vinyl state of mind this week. After Paul Du Noyer’s selection of his seven favourite album sleeves (and yours) we’re rather excited to discover a limited imprint series, launched by 80s Casuals chap, Dave Hewitson.!
The label, Eighties Vinyl Records, is only one release in, but already it’s sporting a philosophy that’s close to our hearts: only release the good stuff, do it to the best of your ability, and do it because you love it.!
It’s a manifesto that Hewitson lives by, having set up the 80s Casuals clothing label a decade or so ago. Records, well, they’re his other passion.!
“Everyone knows that if you’re from Liverpool you’ll have a passion for football, fashion and music. With 80s Casuals (which Hewitson owns with Jay Montessori) we get the printing done locally plus the embroidery and any sewing, and for the last eight years we’ve donated clothing to fundraising/ charity nights. It was through one of these nights that the chance to put out a single came about,” he says.

Curiously, the lads won a day in the studio (did they win the GIT award? Oh no...) and The Sand Band obligingly came along for the ride.!
“I thought, let’s keep this 80s ethos going, and do a limited run on coloured vinyl,” Hewitson (right) says.!

“From there things sort of snowballed as a few more bands got in touch as they loved the idea. So we then decided to set it up as a ‘not for profit’ showcase for the bands, the sleeve designer, the studio, the videographer – everyone involved.”!
With all monies generated from the limited (250 copies) release returned back into the label for the next single, no contracts or publishing deals and an altruistic approach to getting it out there, Hewitson’s created the anti X Factor, and a real shot in the arm for those of us who are still using the wax, not using the CD (as the great Adam Yauch once said).

“Vinyl sales have gone up by 39% in the last two years, up to its highest level since 2005,” Hewitson says. “To me, that confirms that music is an artform that should have tangible presence.”! !
“The sleeve in itself is a piece of art,” he says, adding to Du Noyer’s rallying cry. “If you’re going to listen to a piece of vinyl then you’re taking time out from your daily activities to actually remove the record from the sleeve, place it on the turntable and really listen, rather than throwing an iPod or Spotify on and skimming through thousands of songs which generally have no meaning to the listener.”
But it’s more than that. It’s a quality thing too. It’s about fidelity. Listen carefully, here comes the science...!
“Vinyl is an analogue recording, whereas CDs are digital. Analogue captures the original sound, capturing the waveforms accurately, and capturing a truer sound to that played by the bands,” Hewitson explains.!
“Digital takes snapshots of the analogue recording, therefore it can never capture the full soundwaves.”!
So that’s why your Ed Sheeran CD sounds shit. Possibly.!
So far, the feedback has been encouraging (and we’re not talking about a nasty howling sound loop) – with the website generating 50 sales in its first day.

“It’s been overwhelming,” Hewitson says. “One or two well known bands have got in touch wanting to support the project and help out. We obviously need to sell a good percentage of each release so that we can generate monies to re-invest, so it would be fantastic to have some few high profile names do a song now and again...”

Dream pressing?

“The Las to reform...”

Ah, it’s nice to dream. In the meantime, the label’s first imprint, by The Sand Band, is available for pre order now: with a limited edition T shirt available at a bargain £15 plus p&p. Next up, The Troubadours...

DAVE HEWITSON. SEVENSTREETS 2012

ELLESSE PENGUIN x 80s CASUALS

'A Different Kind of Ellesse'

Ellesse Penguin x 80s Casuals.

Ellesse was founded in 1959 in Perugia Italy by Leonardo Servadio.  The name Ellesse deriving from his initials 'LS'. The first ever branding used by the company, until the mid 1970s Palla logo, was a Penguin (see the 80s Casuals book for pics).  First seen in 1967 the Penguin referenced Leonardo's two pet Penguins which often accompanied him on Ski trips. A rubber Penguin logo would be stitched onto Ellesse's revolutionary Ski Pants.

Our Collaboration uses that branding to stand out from the crowd. Last year we built up a great friendship with the guys at the iconic Italian Sportswear brand and this year we continue that friendship with some new and exciting products inspired by our T-Shirt 'Travel' range including new Winter Jackets designed by ourselves in collaboration with Ellesse.

There will be new T-Shirts for Summer with a Capsule Winter Clothing Collection to follow. 

More details soon.

DAVE HEWITSON 2016

WADE SMITH - THE BEGINNING

A few years back I, along with a TV Crew from LFC.TV, visited Robert Wade-Smith at his home in Caldy on the Wirral. We spent a couple of hours in his company interviewing him on his life, from the early beginnings of working for Peter Black in Keighley to opening the Wade Smith Store on Slater Street in 1982 and through to it's demise in 2005. Here is a short excerpt from that interview.

WADE SMITH

Q) When did you first come to hear about the phenomenon in Liverpool regarding trainers?

A) I was introduced if you like to the Liverpool phenomena as soon as I joined the Top Man concession business. We had twenty concessions around the UK. I was involved in controlling those concessions and driving around the UK for three years, so for one hundred and fifty weeks. Not only was Liverpool the number one for those one hundred and fifty weeks in a row, they were triple the number two and they were doing a third of the whole adidas business for the UK in Top Man Liverpool. They were doing a third of the business out of twenty shops from one shop, so if you like I saw this phenomenal opportunity in Liverpool, it was a micro market, it was unreal really, It wasn’t happening anywhere else in the country the way it was in Liverpool, or even the world quite like it. Particularly as the average price in Liverpool was £30 and the average price of the UK was about £17 at the time. So I was lucky enough to see it from close quarters and that’s what inspired me to start the Wade Smith shop.

Q) Could you just take us back to pre Christmas 1979, just tell us the story about Stan Smiths and the popularity of the Stan Smith trainers back then.

A) Well obviously Stan Smith was the first of the tennis trainers, the breakthrough from the Sambas. So in 1979 it kicked in on the Stan Smith and that was the first big cult. There had been a bit of a fashion thing going on around ‘Kickers’ and a brand named ‘Kios’ that was a copy of Stan Smith. So the Stan Smith was the real thing. Kios were £15 and the Stan Smiths were £20. I think in the Christmas of 1979 we sold something like two thousand pairs of Stan Smith's, so it was the first big cult trainer if you like in the UK.

ROBERT WADE SMITH 2009

PLACES I REMEMBER - BOOK EXCERPT. BARCELONA 2007

PLACES I REMEMBER is available in the PRINT Section of the site.

CHAMPIONS LEAGUE QUARTER-FINAL 1ST LEG 21ST FEBRUARY 2007
CAMP NOU [88000]
BARCELONA. SPAIN

BARCELONA 1 LIVERPOOL 2

Whenever the draw is made, phone calls and texts are quickly sent. Numbers need to be confirmed on who’s going. Their trust is then with the organiser who will obviously try to get everyone there as cheap as possible. Then it’s the dilemma of a single or a two night stay. This fixture pairs us with Barcelona, not only a brilliant team but also a great place to visit.
The texts keep coming thick and fast. Everyone fancies this one including John, who
is spending as much of his redundancy as possible on seeing as many European away games as it will afford. It appears that if ever there was a football ground bucket list, then this is up there near the top. It’s also one of those places on quite a few flight paths and expectations are of a cheap journey. So after many hours trawling different routes, that may save us a tenner here and a tenner there, it’s sorted.

Click ... that’s it done. The most up to now. Nineteen of us, all booked for Barca. Liver- pool to Glasgow Prestwick by train, Ryanair from Prestwick to Reus, Reus to Barcelona by coach. I just hope I’ve booked the correct dates and nothing goes wrong. Worst nightmare would be such a major cock up of my doing. I can’t relax until we’re on the plane. We arrive at Prestwick and all’s fine as I herd everyone together to pass in their passports. Then young Joes friend Anthony passes over the mintiest passport you’ve ever seen. Scuffed cover, pic hanging out, water stained. ‘Oh shit’ I think as Passport control tell him ‘Sorry, You can’t fly with that”. His mother had put it through the wash. Apparently not just the once but twice. My leadership tendencies had to take over, so I pointed him back towards the train station ‘Liverpool’s that way’ and went for a beer.

Five minutes later there’s a plan being hatched by the young lads, Joe, Rob, Jack, Dan and Anthony. ‘We’ll bunk him onto the plane’. This is post 9/11 not 1977 I think. So as we head towards the departure lounge and start boarding Anthony gets in between us all. We show our boarding cards and make our way onto the plane. I get on and as I’m fastening my seatbelt, I can see Anthony’s made it onto the plane before a young stew- ardess asks for his boarding card. A quick thinker in the party passes him his own and Anthony turns to show the stewardess the card. ‘No problem’ she says. He’s onboard but obviously there will be a head count and now there’s an extra person on board who should be on the train back to Liverpool. No worries, we’ll hide him under the seat. Have you seen the gap under the seats on Ryanair? Well remember them contortionists getting into boxes on Opportunity Knocks. This lad would have won the show. He gets curled up in a ball and Joe puts his coat over him.
The plane takes off and once we’re airborne it’s ‘All clear.’ He gets up a bit dazed and looking the colour of boiled shite, but unbelievably, in this day and age, it’s job done. On arrival in Reus, there’s no showing of any passports, we walk straight through and its away we go. Airport security. A doddle.
 

We arrive at our hotel, the classy Hotel Silken next to the famous gherkin shaped building. In fact, the gherkin is that famous I can’t remember its name, but it looks great from the terrace as we take in the surrounding cityscape and decide whether to take a dip in the rooftop pool. The hotel is perfect for us old fogeys, stylish and comfortable. Not one of them cheap and cheerful, ‘it’ll do, it’s only a bed for the night!’ type places for us. The younger element thinks it’s cool too, apparently the Arctic Monkeys recorded a video up here.

Anyway back to the day in hand. The luggage is abandoned in the rooms and we head off in numerous taxis to join the inebriated at the world’s best Champagne bar, La Xam- panyeria, located down a small side street close to the port. It’s a cool Bodega, a typical working class Spanish place, where the local Cava and Tapas are cheap. The tables are barrels and everyone stands.
Our taxi arrives ten minutes after the first one and already arl Ken is sitting outside
in the mid afternoon sun getting some fresh air. The first couple of glasses had gone straight to his head. We did hope he wasn’t too hot as his string vest could soon be
on show. Typical Englishman abroad was Ken, God rest his soul. String vest, hanky
on head, white socks with sandals etc. The afternoon is spent quaffing a glass or three whilst enjoying the odd tapas, plus we also get involved in a photoshoot and chat with some journos from the Champions League Magazine, which made for a pleasant after- noon. It’s gonna be a good day.

The younger lads disappear early on. They want to go to the local square to kick a ball 100 foot into the air. A bizarre ritual that seems to amuse everyone after a few pints. Later we journey along the Ramblas to meet up with them before heading off to the game.

Oh yeah, the game, that ninety minutes that always seems to get in the way of a great day. A magnificent 2-1 victory against the reigning champions, topped off a magnif- icent day. Bellamy and Riise hitting the net. Ironic given the fact that rumour had it, both had a falling out after Bellamy struck Riise with a golf club. Craig’s goal celebra- tion couldn’t have been more apt.

The following day on the journey home Tony was asked the same question about his passport by Spanish Airport security. The answer was simple, it had fallen into the hotel swimming pool.
DAVE HEWITSON 2014