Dressers

After reading the book Dressers I had an entirely different opinion on what many know as the UK’s casuals scene. The passion was at such levels with these football and music loving youths that it sometimes even turned to competitive violence which wasn’t always playful. In fact it’s this particularly sore topic which is the only thing anyone could (and still can) ever hold against these quality brand clad fellows. But in my opinion even with this aggressive behavior their lifestyle was one of the most admirable, for when they fought and thrashed they did it from the heart and they did it for everything that meant anything to them: their clothes, their homes, and each other.

Broken up into four sections (and a fifth, less-central, ‘Scrapbook’ section at the end as a bonus), and the first and most nostalgic section casts a colorful frame across the late 1900s football terrace, and (later) clubbing scenes, following the mouths and fists of the boys who not only explored them but also helped to build them as well. Home events, away retreats, the meeting of other football fan crews, showing off of ones long-searched and well-treasured gear, and the envitable oneupmanship that ensued. Yes, fights occured, and quite honestly I felt them exhilarating to read through and found the boys very brave to have endured (or hopefully given) such a thrashing just to claim their hometown and show off their own colors, current fashions, and overall sense of style.

These stories allowed me to fully understand how in-depth and multi-faceted this scene really was. It wasn’t just about the trainers, wasn’t just about the clothes, nor even just about the football games and teams. It was an ecosystem of its own, one that (hilariously) the police tried so hard to push down and (shamefully) the press tried so hard to paint bad. I dare someone to read this ‘Football’ section of the book and tell me these boys weren’t trying to build something lasting, and I’d go on to wager that they certainly did.

As for styles, the hunt for clothing and trainers can be shared among a wide assortment of people (thanks to the variety of worldwide trainer scenes) so these parts of the book – ‘Fashion’ and ‘Trainers’ – will certainly hit home with people who aren’t so invested in the casuals scene. It’s terribly obvious why the main men behind the book (Matt Johnstone and Kerso) have included these sections in with the stories of football terraces and club nights, but what’s not obvious is their own backgrounds and ideas behind the whole casuals scene, and the Saturday Service’s rise of dresser culture within it. And that’s exactly why we got on toe to chase down Kerso for a nice little go at it involving himself as a dresser and his part in the book.

Kerso, it’s great to have a jar with you fella. Where are you from and what was it like growing up there?

I’m from a town called Bellshill which is located 10 miles east of Glasgow in Scotland. As for growing up there – although it all seemed perfectly normal at the time, looking back in particular to my formative years (from 1980 onwards) it was definitely one of the most influential period of modern times on quite a few fronts – politically and socially while things like music and fashion developed and changed at a frightening rate. I remember an article in which someone had quoted the opening line from A Tale Of Two Cities to describe it: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”.

As someone who hit his teens right at the start of the decade and whose only interest up until then had been football, football, and more football, adolescence hit home with a bang with the realisation that in order not to become a social outcast a decision had to be made as to which particular youth culture movement I was going to align myself with. There was no lack of choice with every town having its own group of New Romantics, Punks, Skinheads, Grebbers (Heavy Metalists), god even Teddy Boys enjoyed a brief resurgence! For me and my mates though the Mod Revivalist scene was the only thing we were interested in. While most were content just to be part of the group and get up to varying degrees of mischief, I was fascinated by the whole culture and spent as much time as possible finding out what I could about two things in particular: original Modernist style and music.

Scootering was next and we formed a club called The Dirty Dozen SC. The scene was huge during the early and mid 80′s with rallies being attended by up to 10,000 scooterists from every part of Britain. A lot of the time it was pure mayhem. Scooters were obviously the one thing everyone had in common but when you take that out of the equation you were left with large numbers of skinheads, Mods, psychobillies, and punks as well as those like the members of our club who were just plain scooterboys. Put them all together in a woefully unprepared seaside town on a Bank Holiday weekend and the results were messy, scary, violent, and hilarious in equal measure. I spent two years driving my cut-down, chopped Vespa getting into more ridiculous situations than I can remember. Normal weekends were spent watching Motherwell FC and traveling up and down the country to Northern Soul all-nighters; a passion developed after my introduction to Motown as a young Mod and which formed a huge part of my life for a decade or more.

1983 was the year that had the biggest impact on my life however when casual culture hit Motherwell and the Saturday Service came into being. These of course were the best of times, certainly in my case. It was the worst of times for others because it was all happening against the backdrop of Thatcherism and our particular part of the West of Scotland suffered a fair bit more than most. This was due to the area’s economy being mainly dependent on the numerous steelmaking factories in and around the district (one plant, Ravenscraig, was the largest steel mill in Western Europe) and Thatcher’s policy of privatisation or destruction of heavy industry meant large scale unemployment and economic hardship for many.

And where are you located now?

I’m still in Bellshill. Apart from a period in the late 80′s – when I moved to London and then Israel for a time – I’ve never felt inclined to be anywhere else.

Tell us, before we move on too quickly into trainers and such, what exactly is the Motherwell Saturday Service?

The name of Motherwell’s football casuals.

For those who haven’t read your book yet, how did the SS get started?

In 1982 a young guy named Steph moved back to Motherwell having lived in Leeds for the previous eight years. He stood out because he had a strange bowl-style haircut and dressed in brightly coloured tennis and golfwear, bleached jeans, and chunky PUMA trainers. It wasn’t long before curiosity got the better of a couple of lads who lived near him. He explained that this was the style prevalent among young football fans in England, they called themselves casuals and most clubs had their own named groups who attended games together. In Steph’s case it was Leeds’ Service Crew. He still traveled regularly down to matches and by the summer of 1983 those initially curious lads adopted the look and went to Motherwell’s matches dressed accordingly. It wasn’t long before other young Motherwell fans followed suit and the Motherwell Saturday Service moniker was adopted. Although unknown to Motherwell at the time Aberdeen already had their own crew – the Aberdeen Soccer Casuals, and thus began the birth of football casual culture in Scotland.

Epic beginnings. As for your trainer beginnings, we already know your first pair was the adidas Jogger, but what was it about this model that made you go for it?

A desire by my Mum to smarten me up a bit for our annual summer holiday to Lytham St. Annes in 1979. Prior to this every pair of trainers I’d had was bought with the sole intention (no pun intended) of playing football, as well as day-to-day wear. The obvious choice was adidas’ black and white range of football trainers – Samba, Mamba, Bamba, Ringo, VIP, or Kick. Hard wearing and built for punishment it was a no-brainer for those of us whose lives revolved around playing football at any given opportunity and almost always on concrete. For whatever reason though during this particular shopping trip to Glasgow it was decided that I should get a pair of trainers which were not to be used for kicking a ball and should be “kept good”. I can only assume that I didn’t need any football trainers at the time because I was happy to go along with this. After being trailed around Goldbergs department store for an eternity we went to a sports shop called Roberts Stores nearby. I do remember choosing the Jogger over Hawaii, in part because a schoolmate of mine had a pair of Hawaii and I didn’t want to be accused of copying him.

And besides nostalgia, is there another reason why this is still your all time favorite? Or is it even?

If I’m honest I really don’t have one all time favourite trainer; nothing that I would choose above all others if I had to. The adidas Jogger however was my first love and the shoe that made me appreciate the aesthetic qualities of trainers as opposed to their functionality alone.

How did this first shoe turn into such ‘a healthy obsession’ as another interview with you has coined your affinity with shoes?

As I say, I began to appreciate trainers more and more for how they looked and I liked the feeling of having a model that no one else had. In the early days this also extended to football boots and football kits. Between 1979 and 1982 I was lucky enough to go to Denmark, Belgium, France, Switzerland, and Italy either to play football or on a school skiing trip. The first thing I would do would be to try and find out where the local sports shops were and spend the entire trip deliberating what boots, trainers, or football top I wanted the most, always only ever having enough spending money to buy just one thing.

Football trips were always a scream. Whilst playing in a tournament in Denmark in 1981 around fifteen of us descended on the local Intersport. It had two members of staff and we were just about to depart the country. The display stock had been put out in pairs so some of those were quickly liberated. Meanwhile the staff was being run ragged bringing out various boots and trainers from the stockroom to be tried on. On finding something suitable those with enough bottle chose an appropriate moment to walk out with most leaving their old footwear behind. I managed to get a pair of PUMA Allan Simonsen boots which had about ten times the number of moulded studs on the sole than any other boots I’d seen and another guy came back with silver kangaroo skin Patrick boots. Remember, this was 1981; nobody had ever seen anything like them.

It wasn’t really an obsession, just a desire to have something different from everyone else which began at a relatively early age. The growth of casual culture obviously provided me with the opportunity to indulge that interest on a bit of a grander scale.

Your selection of shoes seems to be primarily low cuts and runners. Can you express why you focus on these types of trainers?

It’s a purely personal preference based on the trainers I grew up with in the 80′s and my dislike of designs in subsequent years. Trainer designs in the 90′s tended to become more focused on the inclusion of ever increasing technological advances to “improve performance”, none of which enhanced the way they looked, as far as I was concerned anyway. New models introduced post 1990 generally won’t float my boat. Taking it even one step further I’m struggling to remember just when adidas last brought out a completely new model I’ve liked (as opposed to a rehash of a vintage shoe). I’m definitely in the “less is more” camp. Or a Luddite.

What about brands? As you may know, here at eatmoreshoes we’re primarily focused on adidas and PUMA, which seems similar to your tastes as well, and we know why we like ‘em, but what about yourself?

It always comes down to the shoe itself. I reckon about seventy percent of my trainers are adidas, and ten percent PUMA, and the rest made up of other brands. That’s not down to brand loyalty to adidas, a nice trainer is a nice trainer, end of. During the 1980′s though it seemed that for every pair of PUMA trainers available there must have been twenty adidas models to choose from. You don’t have to be a genius to work out that with those odds it took something special from PUMA to make you give them your cash rather than adidas. Put another way – it’s not that I like adidas more, I just have more adidas to like.

Never thought of it like this, but that’s quite a sensible assessment actually. Regarding clothing, besides Stone Island, Fila, and other fine jackets, do you stock a healthy dose of either adidas or PUMA track tops?

No. I have the various original Ivan Lendl tracksuit tops which were popular early on but apart from adidas cagoules and the New Yorker and Colorado hooded sweats (which were worn briefly) I can’t think of anything else. PUMA was a non-starter clothes wise.

Ivan Lendl certainly is a name that comes up a lot when talking about adidas’ past. On that subject – the history of the three stripes – when Horst left this world in 1987 adidas stood as a brand without any family members running it anymore. Do you think this has had a visible and major effect on the adidas output since then?

Ultimately the death of Dassler was the catalyst that started adidas’ rise to the position they hold today. They wouldn’t have had the financial muscle to acquire Reebok if they had stayed a family business and it’s that deal which allowed them to compete at the same level as Nike. That being the case I’d have to say that purely in business terms the effect on the company has actually been positive rather than detrimental. It’s impossible to say if Dassler would have had the foresight to lead them down that path had he survived.

That’s certainly a positive perspective you have on the company Kerso. And while most consumers simply hit the Originals stores or online shops, can you tell us where are you purchasing your shoes and wears?

Good question. I could pretend to be all coy and give you some bullshit answer about not revealing my sources or having a chain of contacts worldwide turning up stuff but the honest answer is practically nowhere! For a while now there has been little or nothing which I’ve come across which has enthused me enough to buy it, either clothes or trainers. Hyped-up, overpriced, obscure Scandinavian outdoor labels don’t set my pulse racing, I’m afraid, nor do re-issues of “iconic classic” casualwear. That’s not to say I’ve fallen out of love with clothes though. I’d consider shelling out for something new I thought was particularly innovative or destined to be a classic in years to come. I’ve been impressed with what Stone Island have done to mark their 30th Anniversary; the retrospective show in Florence was amazing and I’d love to get a hold of the book and the Tela Stella piece from the 30th Anniversary collection. That aside it’s the idea of ultimate exclusivity that appeals most to me now though. I found a great tailor in Glasgow who made me a hooded leather blouson jacket for my 40th birthday. It was based on a combination of two jackets I already had and I provided some Aquascutum fabric for the lining. Being made-to measure the fit is perfect and it’s nice knowing that it’s one of a kind. Next up is a Field Jacket made from a specific camouflage in Gore-Tex I’m currently trying to get a hold of. Again I’ll incorporate the best bits of jackets I already have and try to create my idea of what the perfect Field Jacket should be.

Trainer-wise I’m not going to buy a pair of re-issued City series shoes for example when I have originals still in great shape and more than likely to outlast the new ones. The build quality of most of the newly re-issued models I’ve come across leaves a lot to be desired. That’s only to be expected though as trainers are almost exclusively made as a fashion item rather than as sportswear which means the only goal is to achieve the same look of the original, the original quality isn’t a requirement. A great new colourway or being limited in numbers isn’t going to make it any better either. Not to me anyway, I know enough people however who are lapping them up and consistently still buying, as always it’s just down to personal choice.

As for vintage shoes, if I come across something special I still try and get them but that’s becoming less and less frequent and I don’t have a wishlist of trainers I actively search for. Trying to stay one step ahead of the game when it came to sourcing stuff was always good fun, especially when there was a few of us involved ,but the days of finding an unmined seam of desirable trainers have long gone I reckon.

And what about selling… is that something you ever partake in or is that a grey area? How do you feel about the modern day ‘reseller’ just in it to make a quick buck?

I’m a trainer wearer not a trader so naturally my instinct is to source shoes for myself. If I happen to come across something which is no good to me but would be appreciated by someone else I know then I’ll point them in their direction rather than buy them and subsequently sell them just to make a few quid. By the same token I’ve lost count of the shoes that I’ve picked up thanks to those same people giving me a similar heads-up.

There are occasions though where it would be stupid not to take advantage of certain situations and two in particular come to mind. The first concerns a group of discount shoe stores called Brunswick Warehouse. At one time (maybe around ten years ago or so) there were five of these stores based in various retail parks all within a ten mile radius of where I live. Ninety-nine percent of what they sold was crap but for a brief golden period of a few months I was picking up the likes of TRX, SL72, SL76, Grand Prix, Stan Smith, Ilie Nastase, LA Trainer and others, almost always for between £15.99 and £19.99! They were all boxed deadstock and usually only one or two seasons old. It was a pretty well kept secret with only a few heads doing what I was doing and visiting each store on a weekly basis. Like all good things it had to come to an end, but not before I’d managed to get my hands on around twenty pairs of Forest Hills. Then all the decent stuff disappeared. A short time later the word was that JD Sports had come in and cleaned them out and within days those Forest Hills appeared in Size? with a £100 price tag. From memory I kept four or five pairs for myself to have a bit of customisation fun with, sold around the same number to mates at cost leaving ten or so pairs to sell at various prices – all less than Size? were charging obviously.

The second happened when I stumbled on a pair of 2002 issue blue suede adidas Tobacco in a downmarket local sports shop. For some reason these weren’t released until 2006 and odder still the owner of the shop had said he’d “been landed” with thirty pairs of them in sizes ranging from UK 4 to 10. I won’t say what I paid for them but he happily agreed to sell me them as a job lot. You won’t be surprised to learn that by selling them gradually they have since paid for themselves many, many times over and again I’ve ended up with a few pairs in my size, some of which I’ve also messed around with.

It’s extremely rare for me to buy trainers with the intention of selling for a profit. To those that do though, good luck to you, we live in a free market economy. Silly buyers will pay silly prices, if they’re happy to do so then who am I to criticise? If it ever became a necessity (as far as I know you can’t pay your mortgage in trainers) I’d sell some stuff without it being too painful I reckon. I love having them and wearing them and always will but not to the point of ever being unable to be parted from them.

Now seriously: storage?

I converted my loft a few years ago purely to house my trainers – images provided. The brown boxes are from Ikea and hold four pairs each, the blue ones are from Habitat and each hold two pairs, the white ones again are Ikea and have three pairs in each.

Quite efficient. Talking about the whole package (shoes and clothing) how do you decide what to wear, what to mix… how do you create the right ‘dress’?

[laughs]

Pretty much the only thing I take into consideration is the weather. Assuming it’s good enough to wear trainers I’ll normally have around twenty pairs racked from which to choose from and I’ll change these around every month or so. There’s no specific thought process when dressing though, if I fancy wearing a particular pair then everything else will be based on co-ordinating with them. It may be a specific jacket I’ll want to wear though so that will be the starting point and the trainers then chosen accordingly. More random than structured I’m afraid!

And what about others… do you find yourself judging or sizing folks up based on what they’ve got on? Do you ever find yourself thinking “too bad that guy isn’t rockin’ some adidas Jeans, they’d go great with his hat”?

God no. I’ll only notice if someone makes a particularly good impression. It’s pretty rare these days to see someone stand out from the crowd by how well they’re dressed. Without wishing to sound like a grumpy old man part and parcel of going to games years ago was to check out who was wearing what. Aside from Motherwell, Aberdeen used to have some seriously clued up Dressers and you always used to know the faces to look for. Nowadays it’s dressing by numbers and it’s a part of the culture which has been lost – lads used to dress to stand out, now it’s as if they dress to blend in.

Last questions about your personal life: do you have any trainer rituals you can share with us? And what about those ‘casuals stories’?

I torture myself by not putting any information on any of my trainer boxes to indicate which shoes are stored inside. Invariably this leads me to spend a stupid amount of time trying to locate any specific pair. As for stories – when it comes to trainers and especially the sourcing thereof, I could fill a book. Off the top of my head I can think of a couple which usually make me smile.

In the days before the eBay boom obtaining decent vintage trainers could be a fairly difficult and time-consuming job. One early source was a shop in Frankfurt called Sneakerking. It was run by a guy called Pomo and it has to be said he did have some amazing trainers in the shop and a nice little website. The first few purchases I made were fine. Then I noticed some deadstock red Munchen for sale. They weren’t exactly cheap so just to be on the safe side I contacted him and asked what condition the PU sole was in. I was assured that they were perfect and the sole was rock solid. Reassured, I bought them and eagerly awaited their arrival. The morning they came I was traveling down south for a game so I decided to wear them and show them off. Unfortunately I didn’t get the chance as I left a full sole stuck to Crewe railway station’s platform having taken one step out of the train. To make matters worse I didn’t have any other trainers with me and still had to go to Derby for the weekend. I can’t remember what I did in regards to alternative footwear but I do remember going ballistic when I eventually got in touch with my Frankfurter friend. He, on the other hand was completely non-plussed, assuring me they were fine when he sent them and offering to discount any future purchases. I was hamstrung and he knew it – caveat emptor etc etc. Should I bite my tongue and continue to deal with him, knowing he had quite a few things I wanted but aware that he could just as easily shaft me again or cut my losses and put it down to experience? Before I had the chance to decide one way or another fate apparently decided to intervene. Having decided to go to the Detroit Electronic Music Festival it transpired that the only affordable flights available would involve a transfer. What made it worse (for my traveling companions) was the fact that our transfer destination was in the opposite direction to Detroit, adding a substantial amount of time onto our journey. As for me, I was delighted because we had to change in Frankfurt. I immediately started working out every detail required, right down to the bus I needed to get from the airport to the shop and back again. I was gonna doorstep him, demand an apology and satisfaction in the form of hefty discounts on trainers I could see for myself to be in perfect condition. What could go wrong? The plane being four hours late and me not even being able to step outside the airport, that’s what. In the end, I believe the guy was actually a pretty well known hooligan so chances are he’d have just knocked me out instead of what I had planned anyway.

Another interesting experience came after reading Dan Field’s brilliant adidas article in the Beastie Boys Grand Royal magazine. At the end it gave contact details for Harputs in San Francisco. Knowing that they had produced a limited run of Tobaccos I decided to give it a spin and called them. What followed was one of the most bizarre conversations I’ve ever had. The phone was answered by what sounded like an elderly female in a somewhat un-businesslike manner. “Yeah?” she said. I proceeded to give my spiel about who I was, the article, getting the number and enquiring as to the possibility of buying the Tobaccos by mail order. “Where you from?” she asked. “Scotland.” I replied. There then followed a full-on rant on the subject of the Loch Ness Monster which must have lasted about twenty minutes. I tried to intervene at various points but she wasn’t having any of it, off she would go again until she finally ran out of steam, asked me for my details and duly sent me my Harputs Tobaccos.

[both laugh]

Craziness! Cheers for churning up those old tales Kerso. So we know you’re working on books and making a name in the trainer circuit, but can you describe for us what you did (for money) as a young man and tell us what your ‘career path’ has been like leading up to the current day?

Originally I’d planned to go to university and study German however I decided to take a Commercial Apprenticeship with British Steel after leaving school as it meant I got paid as well as studying Business at college. I was offered a redundancy package in 1986 and as I had just taken and passed the Civil Service Executive Officer examination I was only too happy to accept. I moved to London to work for HM Customs and Excise complete with large redundancy cheque in my pocket. All was fine and dandy for a while until I realised I’d managed to blow the cash somewhat quicker than anticipated. Rather than get the head down and get on with it I quit and headed to Israel (as one does). Initially I worked on a Kibbutz. It was no ordinary Kibbutz though, this just happened to be the country’s most northerly one and within spitting distance of both Lebanon and Syria. Katyusha rockets being fired from the Lebanese side of the Golan Heights was a regular occurrence! I then subsequently moved to Tel Aviv where I ended up working as a film extra on Agatha Christie’s “Appointment With Death”. On returning home I started work in a firm of Stockbrokers in Glasgow where I remained for the next nineteen years.

On the day of my 40th birthday I realised an ambition when I resigned and started my website and label: A Healthy Obsession. I was extremely fortunate that my partner at the time was supportive of the decision and for a time things went well, the first range of tees selling out in forty-eight hours. Unfortunately not too long afterwards my father was diagnosed with terminal cancer so the business took a back seat and I spent the next year and a half caring for him until he passed away. My girlfriend and I also split up after ten or so years together so I found myself in unfamiliar territory: alone and with no gameplan.

Thanks to a great friend of mine, Helen Sweeney Dougan, who was PUMA’s Brand Manager, I worked with them on a number of trainer launches, notably Clyde, State, G. Vilas, and Argentina. I also took the opportunity to set up a proper music studio, did a college course in Photoshop, contributed to various books and magazines, DJ’d regularly and continued to follow Motherwell. I’m now at the stage where I’m going to have to make some serious decisions about what to do going forward. One thing I certainly want to do is get the label going again but it won’t be via a dedicated website, not at the moment at least.

What would your ultimate dream job be?

Easy, if I could make a living DJ’ing I’d be the happiest man alive. There’s nothing that can compare to the feeling of seeing a dancefloor going off to music you’re playing.

Now, how did you become involved in the Trainers book by Neal Heard?

Helen Sweeney-Dougan suggested to Neal that I might be able to help out with the Casuals part of the book. I, in turn, knew that John Connolly and Shaun Smith would be perfect to provide the necessary narrative and so between us we did the first chapter of the book.

What was this experience like? Did you enjoy the limelight or find it hard to cope with? Or was there even any limelight?

On the face of it my contribution should have been the easiest of the lot. Unfortunately that’s not quite how it turned out. We’d agreed that John and Shaun would write a brief history of trainers in football casual culture whilst I would do a photoshoot. What we hadn’t counted on though was the fact that because the photographer was going off to do a calendar in Thailand the only suitable date and time for the shoot (at my house) was early on a Saturday morning, immediately following a DJ gig I was playing at the Sub Club in Glasgow on the Friday night. I arrived home around 6AM on the Saturday morning and then had to transport two hundred single trainers from my loft to the living room and arrange them in time for Mackie (the photographer) arriving at 8AM. Having also been up most of the Thursday night sorting records for the gig I’m surprised he managed to find a single photo where I don’t look extremely the worse for wear.

The book was certainly helpful in that I’ve met some really decent people who recognized my name from it (the photo is a bit misleading as it’s one of the few times over the last ten or so years where I’ve had short hair). There’s been no limelight as such that I can think of – the best thing to come out of it was getting a copy of the Japanese edition. I now know what my name looks like in Japanese! Also, to this day I’ve never had the pleasure of actually meeting Neal. As far as I’m aware he moved to Wales and is living a quiet life. It would be nice to hook up with him one time and buy him a beer by way of thanks.

We’ve saved the best for last Kerso: tell us about Dressers! Where did the idea come from?

“Dressers – 80′s Lads Culture, One-Upmanship, Football, Fashion & Music”, to give the book its full title, is a project which has been 3 years in the making. 2008 marked the 25th anniversary of the formation of the Saturday Service and doing something to mark the occasion had often been talked about. The more it was talked about the more it moved from being an idea to a possibility and eventually a reality.

We wanted to document everything which was relevant to those who have been involved over the years and so only part of the book is about the football side of it, while the rest concerns the clothes and trainers, the music and clubs, with particular emphasis on accompanying imagery provided by both original photographs from personal collections and those done specifically for the book.

The workload involved has been huge as has the learning curve, to the point where months and months worth of images, text and layout design were scrapped on more than one occasion, purely because it was thought it could be improved upon. What we have ended up with is close to three hundred full colour pages which will hopefully appeal to a varied group of people on different levels as well as the original target market – those whose lives it is about.

Who else is involved in the project?

On the football side of things Matt Johnstone had the unenviable task of piecing together and editing most of the narrative from the many interviews conducted and recollections of those who were actually there at the time whilst also providing some of the chapters himself. Matt was the obvious choice having written “Saturday Is Service Day” some ten years previous, his personal account of the early years with the Saturday Service and coincidently enough in the process of being revised and reprinted.

I provided the writing for the Fashion and Trainers sections of the book and split it over the three decades covered. Whilst the majority of the images are of my clothes and trainers, one way or another we eventually tracked down anything I couldn’t provide but we felt needed to be included. Add to this the various contributions made regarding the massive impact of club and rave culture specific to Motherwell (including contributions by the likes of Carl Cox and Graeme Park) and you have a project which has involved quite a number of people over a long period of time!

It’s massive, that’s for sure. The history that the book captures – in our opinon – is epic and enthralling, to say the least! Though we’re curious if it’s met your expectations?

To be honest I don’t have any expectations as such, having worked on it for so long it’s difficult to make a reasoned, unbiased judgment but I’m certainly happy with the work we’ve done and for what it’s worth anyone who has seen it so far has been highly complimentary.

Before we part ways, we gotta know: for those that want to own a copy of Dressers how should they go about ordering one?

Go to www.dressersbook.com where you can see our hugely popular trailer and order the book online.

Lastly, do you have anything you’d like to pass onto younger Dressers out there?

Yeah. Ignore any advice given to you by people like me and do your own thing.

written by Dylan Cromwell