Over the last 15 - 20 years many would say that Hip-Hop has been a driving force in global culture and everybody, when they talk about trainer culture, seems to relate it back to hip-hop whereas in the UK you've got a trainer culture that's pretty much unique to this country that didn't really happen anywhere else.
N.G - I don't think it was a UK thing, I think it was exclusive to the North West. When I first moved down here with a couple of holdalls full of adidas trainers and I was checking into hotels I'd be like "Don't lose me ****ing trainers." They'd be going "What is it with you Mancunians and trainers?" That's when it first stuck me, I don't think it even came as far as London to be honest with you. Cos we were obsessed with it up in Manchester. It was a football thing as well, really, in the eighties it was exclusive to adidas and I don't know why that was.
In the same way that a Superstar is a basketball shoe but when a kid sees a shell toe he associates it with far more than basketball- he might know it was originally designed for playing basketball but probably associates it with hip-hop. The same way that an indoor super is an old fashioned squash shoe to someone from a sports company but to a kid up north it's like "yeah, this is a shoe that everybody wore on the football terraces back in the early 80s." So are you convinced that the connection between the football terraces and trainers began in the North West?
N.G - I mean saying that I would be biased saying that cos that's where I grew up. All I can relate it to is when I first moved to London or even when I was a roadie and we used to come down to London when I was in me twenties and stuff like that, nobody would stop you in the street and say "where'd you get them trainers from ?"
I remember going to Argentina and getting a pair of adidas Marathon in navy blue with white stripes, this is years ago, and it was literally the minute I walked out of the airport somebody pulled up in a car- "Where did you get those from?" and I said "Argentina" and they go "where's that?" cos they thought it was a shop! I said, "its in South America isn't it" Down here they don't seem to get it, maybe it's because when I moved down here I was living in North London, which is a bit posh anyway, maybe if I'd have gone down the East End it might have been a bit different.
I wanted to talk about some of your earlier memories of getting into trainers. For me, the first pair of trainers I got were from a shoe shop and weren't branded. The first pair of adidas trainers I really remember getting were adidas kick.
N.G - That's my first pair - adidas kick.
I was thinking back through early trainers I wore last night and I realised that because I used to play football as a kid that the priority was getting trainers that could stand up to regularly kicking a ball about. I wore a lot of black leather trainers because I used to play football so much and if I'd got suede trainers and played football they would have lasted about 5mins.
N.G - Well, I remember the first pair of adidas shoes I got weren't trainers actually, they were a pair of adidas football boots and they were black leather and they had like a sky bluish moulded sole and the first pair I had after that were adidas kick, I didn't get them from a shop, I bought them off a lad in primary school cos he had them and they didn't fit him so my mam bought them off his mam. I suppose it started becoming an obsession when you were old enough to go to the match on your own and everyone had adidas. adidas were massive, massive, massive in the North West- huge. And in the first division it seemed to be only scousers and mancs who... and Leeds as well. When we drew Leeds in the cup, all the hooligans were wearing adidas.
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Where were you did your shopping for shoes in the early eighties?
N.G - Oasis centre in the underground market, it wasn't actually underground it was the bit at the top, and they used to sell...what was the t-shirts with the penguin on?
Munsingwear
N.G - That's them. That was all they used to sell and ****ing wrangler brown, flared cords and they used to have about maybe, in stock, about a dozen pairs of adidas trainers and they were always, I always remember them having the Dublins - toffee coloured sole, blue suede with red stripes and it was just in there really and I mean, I don't think, in the eighties it wasn't really a massive thing, I mean trainers is ****ing big business now, it wasn't then, it wasn't even, trainers weren't really... you'd never see an advert on the telly for a trainer back in the eighties, ever. Like now, adidas spend a couple of million quid or ****ing ВЈ500 on an advert to get David Beckham to sit in a car for 30 seconds and it's an advert. But back then it was all word of mouth and if you had a cool pair of adidas on you got the looks in the street man.
Cos the guy who ran the Oasis shop was a City fan wasn't he?
N.G - He was yeah, that's where I claim we got our name from. Liam always comes up with another dull story that he saw it on a poster somewhere, and it's like "Shut up man." But that was a wicked place to go, we used to wear these levis yellow checked shirts, they were yellow with like a sort of red check, brown wrangler flared cords and any adidas you could get, Nike didn't even exist then.
I used to wear trainers and anoraks and students would call people like me "townies," cos students in Manchester at that time were wearing Smiths t-shirts and overcoats...
N.G - We used to go to Manchester uni, when the bands you'd be into would come and play the uni and if you wore what we wore they'd never let you in. If you turned up with like an anorak on and a pair of flares and a pair of adidas trainers, ****ing half stoned or summat, they'd say "No, Students only tonight" just because for some reason they thought you looked rough, don't know why.
Did you actually collect trainers yourself in the eighties?
N.G - Well the only reason I collect them now, my missus has got a theory about this, she fancies herself as a bit of a psychologist. She goes "You've got all the money in the world, what is it with these manky pairs of old ****ing adidas trainers you're bringing home, you'll come in the door and you'll go (smiling) "****ing guess what I bought today?" and she goes "what" and I'll go "look at these" and she'll go " they're ****ing falling to bits." She reckons it's because when we were all on the dole and we couldn't afford to buy them, and we'd see them in the shops and you'd just think "****ing hell man" and there was no such thing as a second hand culture or second hand clothes- second hand clothes were for tramps, it was a mod thing, everything had to be brand new, so there was no second hand culture then. She said it's probably because you grew up on the dole looking through these shop windows and now you've got the money to buy them it doesn't matter if they're in or out of fashion. It's all the ones you go back to like the adidas "Highway" you think I could never ****ing afford them, but I'm gonna buy them now. I don't know what it is, it's like collecting guitars and sunglasses for me- they're just cool as ****, to me it's part of the past and I stick them on once in a while for a photo shoot and a photographer turns up and he'll go "where did you ****ing get them from?" Like them adidas brown shoes (adidas Korsikas), I've worn them once in a photo shoot and interview and I'll spend more time talking about me shoes than me new ****ing album. To me they're just important artefacts of the eighties.
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So, How many pairs would you say you've picked up, at a guess?
N.G - A hundred? I don't know
Have you got any stories about anywhere mad you've picked em up? Liam said you went to the adidas office in Argentina.
N.G - Argentina's ****ing having it for adidas over there. I got a pair of grey gazelles there with black stripes and a black sole. Like you say though, they won't issue anything that's not got a global appeal now. But you go to all these places now, I suppose it's a reflection of the globalisation of the world, you don't get anything that's unique to...You know, you'd go to Yugoslavia and you'd see stuff that you'd never seen before in your life and it was unique to that country. Where as now, everything is mass produced and it all becomes, like fast trainers to me, it's just like fast food.
So how do you find it when they re-issue a shoe that you're into?
N.G - They always get it ever so slightly ****ing wrong. But it's great to see them and it's great when you see kids wearing them because obviously they have never seen the originals so they don't know any better, but you feel a bit of an old fart going like that "Hey, but I've got a pair" and you say "look, it's an eight of a millimetre too thick at the top." It's like you said before, it's a train-spotter thing, but, it is ****ing important. Because is you're going to re-make adidas Dublin, you've got to get the right colour blue. It's like when you make the Handball spezial, it's got to be the right colour sole. To us, anyway, you just go "it's not as good as the ****ing originals man." But seeing them prototypes of Indoor Super you've got over there, they are as close as you'll ****ing get to the original and it's good to see them coming back man, I just hope they don't mass produce them so there's loads and loads and loads of them and everybody wears them.
Which shoes would you like to see re-issued?
N.G - The adidas brown shoes. Them and... I bought a pair right, and it was in this ****ing little shop, this is when I was a kid in Southern Ireland when I was out with me mam once. I can't remember what they were called but they were like Indoor Super and they had a really flat, thin sole and they were white with navy blue stripes. If any, I think the adidas shoes or adidas cord man, them brown ones with beige stripes, they were pretty ****ing cool. But all of them, there's just something about them, for me. Me missus is always going on about it and Liams the only one that understands. We were out the other night and some random geezer's wanting to talk about Oasis and he's wearing these adidas trainers, and Liam goes "Hey, our kid has got the best ****ing collection of adidas." And that was it for 45mins. To us it's something to be proud of in a way and it freaks people out in a way. Because we've been all around the world you know, I've met Oscar winners, I've met one of the Beatles and all that, but the most prized possesion I've got is me adidas trainers, I wouldn't go anywhere without them.
What about your own taste in trainers? I personally am a big fan of mid 80s running trainers but I know you quite like your flat shoes..
N.G - I like the flat, thin sole, basic. Flat, thin, preferably suede. As for colour combinations, navy blue and white is usually fantastic, whichever way you put them. Anything with a flat, toffee coloured sole I'd pay top whack for them.
What did you think about adidas re-issuing the old sixties shoes like the Italia?
N.G - Great, mega, especially when you see old pictures. I've seen a picture of the Spencer Davis Group playing outside the Albert Hall and Spencer Davis is playing his hammond wearing a pair of adidas Italia. They're ****ing great man. And they've got them perfect as well actually. I've never seen an original pair but I've seen pictures and they look pretty close.
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Is it possible to remember different occasions in your life by the trainers that you wore?
N.G - I always have this funny thing. Gem pulled me up on it once, because I said to him- "You're not going to go on stage with trainers on are you?" For me, for some reason, I've got a mental block about going on stage in trainers. I don't know why it is, I always wear shoes. Gems response was that "Keith Richards used to wear gazelles on stage." Trainers are for going out in, they're not for working in dyknowhatimean? So back in the day, I would only wear them on aeroplanes. Back when we were starting off the clubs were really small, and it's like I say, if someone would have thrown water onstage and stained a pair of me trainers I would have gone ****ing mental. Growing up at Maine Road really, I was wearing a pair of adidas the day city got relegated, by Luton! I remember that. One of the first photo shoots we did outside Maine Rd, I'm wearing me original gazelles in that.
So, whats missing from your collection?
N.G - This pair that I got in Ireland that I can't remember what the ****ing name of them is. Like them Barrington ones there with red and blue stripes rather than three grey stipes. I remember having a pair of slightly off red colour Gazelle, in fact, they were almost pink. Me mam ended up somehow putting them through the wash and they actually did go a faded pink and they were ****ing mega. I don't know where they've got to. I've forgotten all the names because there's so many but I've got pictures of them in my mind.
Why adidas for you? I know you can say about growing up with it, but there's a lot of stuff I wore then whose appeal has worn off.
N.G - It's three things. The blue box, with the three stripes on the side. I've still got an original box that I got when I bought a pair of shoes a few weeks back. When I get them I always stick em in me bedroom, put the shoes on top of the box and sit there for hours just going..."****ing the business" boring the missus, she's going "Are we going out for dinner or what?" "No man, just give us another half hour, ****ing look at them though." I stop short of taking the camera out. It's the old logo and it's just the three stripes. Any more than three stripes on a pair of trainer looks ****ing stupid“. Nike have done some pretty cool old trainers but the three stripes it's just...I don't know...it's just it for me.
I find it amazing when I walk the streets and I see people wearing two stripes on their tracksuit tops and thinking nothing of it.
N.G - What the **** is that all about?
I just really don't understand it cos when I was growing up if you wore two stripes you'd get beaten up!
N.G - There's been a rumour going around that adidas are going to make the city kit when they move into the new stadium, I forgot to ask the chairman on Saturday. I was saying "It'd be just the business" and he (the chairman) said "why?" and I was going "not for the kit, for the tracksuit top" Cos if you're going back to the old logo. If they do a tracksuit top which has got a ****ing round knitted collar, three stripes down the side, city badge on one side and the adidas logo on the other- I'd ****ing die a happy man. I'd just buy six hundred, I'd buy little ones for me daughter at every stage that she's going to grow up and that'll be ****ing it, I'll get buried in one.
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