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