Items10The creator’s order
  1. 1Adidas SambaAdidas SambaAdolf Dassler designed the Samba in 1949 so footballers could train on icy, hard ground, and British fans on the terraces took to its plain, low look long before anyone called it fashion. That flat profile and gum sole are exactly why it still sits right with straight jeans. The current Samba OG…0
  2. 2Adidas GazelleAdidas GazelleReleased in 1966, the Gazelle was the first Adidas shoe made with suede rather than canvas or leather, and that soft nap is a big part of why it became an ever-present on the terraces in the 1980s. It then had a second life in the Britpop years, which is why it reads as both football and indie. It…0
  3. 3Adidas Stan SmithAdidas Stan SmithThe clean one. First launched in 1965 as the Robert Haillet and renamed for Stan Smith by 1978, it swaps the usual stripes for three rows of punched perforations. White leather Stan Smiths were a fixture of the casual look alongside the suede indoor shoes, the quiet choice among the tennis models…0
  4. 4Adidas Handball SpezialAdidas Handball SpezialReleased in 1979 as an indoor handball shoe, the Spezial was never really aimed at football fans, which is probably why they claimed it. Premium suede and a grippy rubber outsole built for quick turns on a court made it a dresser's shoe from Aberdeen to Arsenal. It also carries the modern terrace…0
  5. 5Adidas Forest HillsAdidas Forest HillsA 1976 tennis shoe named after Forest Hills in New York, and one of the shoes that defined the casual era's taste for the best trainers money could buy, elitist appeal and all. Wade Smith in Liverpool did a lot to make it one of the most sought-after three-stripe styles in the North West. What…0
  6. 6Adidas Trimm TrabAdidas Trimm TrabA West German keep-fit shoe that ended up as the uniform of the North West. It came out of a campaign to get people exercising in the mid-1970s, and by the early 1980s it was the shoe of choice for UK football casuals. In Liverpool, "trabs" is still slang for sneakers, which tells you how deep it…0
  7. 7Adidas MünchenAdidas MünchenIf you start a City Series collection with one shoe, this is the sensible one. Introduced in 1976 as an indoor training shoe and named after the Bavarian capital, the München quickly won the respect of the casuals, and its super suede upper put it near the top of every wish list. The version…0
  8. 8Adidas DublinAdidas DublinAmong diehard City Series fans, the Dublin is the holy grail, and owning a pair still says you know your stuff. Its story goes back to 1976, and the look has barely moved since: deep blue suede, red-orange hits on the tongue, stripes and heel, a gum sole, gold foil lettering and the T-shaped…0
  9. 9Adidas StockholmAdidas StockholmThe other half of the City Series pair that people actually wore. Gary Aspden, looking back on the 1980s, put it plainly: "The shoes that I really remember people wearing were Dublins and Stockholms." It is the Swedish flag in shoe form: deep blue suede with yellow leather stripes and heel, gold…0
  10. 10Adidas HamburgAdidas HamburgThe workhorse of the City Series. First released in 1982 as an indoor training shoe, the Hamburg uses the same recipe as the Samba, a gum sole under rich suede with a T-shaped toe, but without the Samba's ubiquity. Adidas pulled it out of the Herzogenaurach archive in 2014, and nearly a decade on…0