My name is Dave Hewitson, life long Liverpool supporter. Dad took
me when I was about 6 years old, season ticket holder, first season ticket 1979.
We go down Anfield road and then it sort of became a fashion catwalk, the fashion was changing and
you felt you wanted to be a part of that as well. So the trainer shoes first appeared in like 77/78
and then suddenly in about the 80s it must have been you know start of the season, there were
a few pairs of strap-over trainers around, I was saying to these lads 'Where d'yer get yet trainees
from?' You know the strap-over trainers, I've never seen them before, and they had come back
from Germany with a few pairs. A few shops in Liverpool ended up getting them a month of two
later but that was sort of the start of like wanting something that wasn't available, so
I think it was April 81 Liverpool ended up playing Bayern Munich in the European Cup.
Probably three or four thousand scousers, Liverpool supporters go over
but about up to 2000 were 16 - 20-year-olds and they were going for one reason,
not the match but to get a pair of trainers from Germany!
I'm PJ, 42 and I've been following Everton since I was five. So back then
like, my nan, my uncle's mum who I went to the match with, she lived abroad
and she'd send stuff home, she'd send like Benetton shirts home and Lacoste Jumpers,
L'Alpine trackies that back in the late 80s would have been 100 quid. Berghaus, Trango stuff that
was like the same price, and I'd watch and kind of look at what my uncle and his mates were wearing.
Some of the stuff that your seeing in this exhibition as well, to a five-year-old,
you couldn't figure it out, like tweed jackets and chords and like Timberland's and Moccasin's
and all that, we just couldn't figure that out because to us they looked like teachers.
I do now own a few of them now, proper tweed jackets,
when we were kids we used to wonder what that was all about.
From that early period from like 1980 onwards 5-10 years,
there was little firms of lads going over and bringing back Addidas trainers. Next
minute sports shops are opening everywhere you're getting five or six on one street and
now you can't go down one street in town without being able to buy trainers in probably 20 shops.
'Grand Slam' was actually copyright for the Tennis,
so they can't put 'Grand Slam' on them anymore, and that's been since the 80s I think, late 80s.
So it's one of them things isn't it, if you knew then what stuff was going to become,
like the amount of stuff I've just given away to like the fella in our street doing his
garden 'Here have these trainees' 30 years later these trainees are worth 500 quid,
that Germany top, I used to have that, back when it came out,
Olympus sport of something, £20, now it's like the holy grail of retro footy tops.
For us who were like 13 in 93, it was about shops really. So I was into Olympus Sport, Dirty Sport
and the stuff they sold, big bright spray ways,
Australian trackies. And the big thing at that point, if you were 13 in 93 and
you didn't have an Addidas suede trackie, Terminator in particular, you were no one.
Yeah their like proper 90s looks that I would have probably
worn stuff like that, it was all sportswear, Addidas, AAC
but I suppose where like this whole movement affected us, 10 years later is,
we were never interested in American stuff, Air Jordans, Reebok Pump, it just wasn't for us.
That's kind of the look these young kids, lower league teams, this is it, this is the staple
uniform look. Me and my mates apart from the Addidas trackies we'd knock about in, it was
never a uniform staple thing, we all looked a bit different. These probably just go to like the most
expensive shop in town and buy the most expensive jacket and think that gives them something, but
it was never about that for me and my mates.
You see pictures of like lads away fans, 20 of them just all in the same jacket getting
the badge in the photograph and I don't think that was the point of all this like.
Liverpool has always been on its own, we think about what we want and we dress the way we want,
there was no influence from style magazines.
It was a city thing, if you're from Merseyside this is how you dress,
it wasn't if you support Everton or Liverpool, I never noticed that.
We look at the kids today, you know they're not influenced by influencers on Instagram
or even what London are wearing or anywhere else, they'll wear what they want to wear and
take on whatever style or fashion they think is appropriate.
They're not copying off musicians, somethings just happened organically,
no one sat down and went like 'We're going to grow ket wigs and we're going to wear bubble coats,
let's finish the meeting there and everyone go an tell your mates' I
dont know what's happened but it's the same kind of ethos as this, just a different era.