The Sole Supplier Catch Up With Neal Heard to Talk All Things Football, Casual Culture and Lover's FC

For those who have been around the trainer scene for some time now, it's likely Neal Heard's name might ring a bell. Back in 2003, Neal authored and released the now-iconic 'Trainers' book, documenting sneaker tribes and the cult-like following that surrounds them. In 2016, Neal repeated his trick by releasing 'A Lover's Guide to Football Shirts,' a book that, in essence, predicted the explosion of football culture crossing over to the fashion world before it even happened. With years spent around both the fashion and football industries, Neal has overseen the emergence and growth of new trends, eventually leading him to start his own brand Lover's Football Club, in 2017.

On the verge of the FIFA World Cup 2022, we caught up with Neal to talk about everything from his thoughts on the controversy surrounding the upcoming tournament to his casual movement upbringing that saw him become a veteran of '80s football terraces.

"I guess, to be honest with you Jack, I'd have to go back to the beginning of the early '80s when I was part of the football casual movement. For a while the casuals were overlooked by people, mainly because they were linked to hooliganism, and because of that, the mainstream and fashion press didn't really pay much attention to its aesthetics and take on things. I think as time has gone by, people have sort of realised how important and groundbreaking that movement actually was. I guess for me, without going on a rant, I think it's very important for people to remember that movement, especially if you're from Britain.

I was present for that period where people who went to games started appropriating sportswear and wearing it as leisurewear, which can sound amazingly obvious now in 2022, but in 1982 it wasn't an obvious thing to do. As I'm sure you're aware, we adopted these European sportswear brands like FILA, Tacchini and Kappa, all of which you could hardly buy in Britain at the time because they were only available in high-status sports shops. At the same time, we started appropriating brands like Burberry, Barbour, and Aquascutum, all those high-end heritage garments, and wearing them too. Those kinds of brands were only sold in golfing shops or gentleman's outfitters, and you didn't see anyone wearing them that was over 50, then all of a sudden, you've got these kids going around in quite a standout look.

It was more rebellious than it may seem now, 40 years later. Another massive part of that whole movement was the trainers. Apart from the hip-hop kids across the pond, it was the casuals who first started to wear trainers as a fashion item."

"I think there are two sides to it. I feel like things should forever evolve. I find it a little bit sad when you see people still dressing exactly the same way and trying to be mini me’s of what it was like in the '80s. Like dad casuals, that kind of guy. Maybe he's bald now and got a big fat belly, and he's trying to get himself into a FILA Bj - I think 'why are you doing that for?

At the same time, I feel like the casual movement was amazingly fast evolving. Like there were always lots of little movements it went through because you always wanted to have a one up on the opposite fans, like you wanted to look better and say, 'we've got the next best thing.' So for me, I think it's sad it gets stuck in a little niche, it should be forever moving. Like the people who go to games now and like to dress, wear the clothes and think they're cool then it should have another name.

Before the casuals came, there were the skins, and in the middle of the '70s they used to wear massive flairs, big platform shoes and scarves around their wrists, and they were all people who went to the match thinking they looked great. Personally, I think it shouldn't be so stuck in one place, instead, let a new thing come along next month."

"To be honest with you, it's the one thing that's shocked me most in my professional life. I started out in the early '90s going around all the little sportswear shops getting all the old retro models of shoes, all before adidas Originals, before Nike re-released the classics, and no one was doing it. I started doing that with Fraser Moss from YMC because he's from the same town as me, and the Duffer Boys used to do it on a bigger scale.

I knew that sort of stuff had been in a long time, and that's when I wrote the 'Trainers' book in 2003, but in 2016 when I made the football shirts book, I guess I'd say it was more of an indulgence almost. I had this massive collection and knew they resonated with people with a geeky collector's side to it, but I also knew there was a side to them that was way cooler than that. I thought they link to music, they link to fashion, they link to politics, they link to graphic design, and so I sat down, and the book almost poured out of me like it was waiting to come out.

As you touched upon, if you wrote that book now six years later, the book would be so different it would be beyond belief. I'd be a liar if I saw it coming, I knew that scene was loved, and I knew it was a great book, but I didn't see what was going to happen. Almost from that moment on, without sounding big-headed, I think that book played a big part in things, and now the whole scene has exploded."

"I've got about 500. Even though I've got that many, I'm quite fussy and not somebody who thinks, 'oh those are the top ten and you've got to have them,' say like Holland '88 or Germany '88. If I came across them, I'd buy them, but I don't think I've got to tick them off the list, I've always just done my own thing. I was massively into Brazilian shirts with Coca-Cola sponsorship and anything that linked to something else, like casualwear. I guess I kind of like the storytelling as well as the aesthetics, and if anything, I've got fewer British teams just because it wasn't so exotic. I found all the foreign teams exotic and romantic with a bit more to them. I do have enough British teams, don't get me wrong, but I've probably got a bigger Serie A collection than I have first-division Premier League sides.

I think that's the thing about the shirts. Earlier, you told me you were a Villa fan, and I can go 'oh right! I can show him this.' That for me is the biggest pleasure with all the shirts. All of a sudden, I was being contacted by people like a guy from Buenos Aires who sent me an old Boca shirt which was about 400 quids worth, and he just sent it to me to say 'thank you so much for your book!' It's a very uniting thing, and that's where Lover’s FC came from.”

"Very early on when the book came out around 2017, I could see football shirts were suddenly moving into another realm. You would see kids wearing them, and you would have to do a double take in the street to say 'what?!' because you just didn't see people wearing them as a fashion item. Again using the term 'appropriation' - people who are into style will pick their own thing, so they started to pick up football shirts and wear them in a totally different way. It's the new world take on it. The Yanks and the Japanese, who maybe didn't have our heritage on football or how it worked with the rules and tribal loyalties - you would see them suddenly wearing an Arsenal shirt with a Man United baseball cap on because they didn't have our rules to say you can't do that. That's what makes it appealing, because it broke out of the straight jacket it had been in.

As most big trends are, it was led by us, the people on the street. Then, the brands cottoned on to see what was going on and wanted a piece of the action. You could see this movement was coming because the fashion tribes were all starting to wear football shirts, then it kind of went to the catwalk, and then you had savvy clubs. The savvier clubs who were ahead of the game saw what was going on and brought the two together. For me, football clubs are now becoming new streetwear brands within themselves. I think that's what the fashion labels are seeing, and that's what the switched-on football teams are seeing. They're saying 'we're not just a known football club now. The kit that we wear, the off-the-pitch stuff we wear, the whole brand of this team is important. We are now a brand.

We're basically in the infancy of it really. As you've just reeled off, there are names and examples, and you can sprinkle in ten more, but there are not too many. In 15 years, every club will end up being a bit like that, and we're at the beginning of it where things are only going to get bigger and bigger. I can see the football shirt world being like the trainer world, where it gets exponentially bigger and that important where it becomes a massive part of lifestyle, not just sport."

"That's a good question. I'd written the book in 2016, and it was first called 'The Lovers Guide to Football Shirts,' but it's since been sold to Penguin, who gave it a new name - 'The Football Shirts Book.' As I mentioned before, I could see from that point the shirt scene was changing, and I had clocked it very early. I remember thinking to myself, 'you know what, this is brilliant, I'm going to be one of the first labels', other than labels like Noah FC - who I'll give a plug to because they're brilliant guys from New York. There was another bunch from Korea, but outside of the two and myself, very few people were making that connection and saying 'look, let's make football shirts be part of streetwear.

It made total sense to me then because I looked at it and thought, 'well, what do I like about this whole thing? The lover’s side of it.' A Brazilian loves it, an Argentinian loves it, you love it, I love it - it brings us together. But at the same time, it was about taking that thing and mashing it up and reinterpreting it. I wasn't interested in just doing the retro jerseys, which has got quite a side to it now. I was more into the idea of taking an amazing print we all used to be into, or a Versace reference, or let's imagine if Louis Vuitton made a shirt, etc. So Lover's FC was always just about trying to encapsulate that and making a football shirt brand that isn't for the sake of teams, but for the sake of making dream kits we'd like to make.

It's gone on a journey. I got into Urban Outfitters first in 2017, and then I collaborated with YMC, and then Selfridges because they tend to see these things bubbling. To be honest with you, I get approached to do a lot of collaborations, but I'm quite fussy, and I want to protect it. I don't want it to suddenly be something it's not because it wouldn't be enjoyable, and it would die too quickly. I'm trying to keep the ethos of where it came from as much as I can."

"I tip my hat to them. I don't want to chastise other people and make out that I'm such a saint, but personally - I'm totally against the Qatar World Cup. I thought it was awful the minute they announced it, and I thought it was awful when Russia got it. At the time you could just see it was totally a FIFA stitch-up. How could you give Russia and then Qatar the World Cup on the same day? It was obviously all about money.

I was against the Russian World Cup, and I'm against this one now, which is especially painful for me because Wales have finally qualified after 58 years and I'm a Welshman. Part of me is really glad we've broken 58 years of pain, but at the same time, there's no chance in the world I'm going. Normally I'd have walked across barefooted to see Wales at the World Cup, but I'm not having a part of it.

I think for Denmark to do that, it was very brave of them. I know some might claim it's a bit of marketing, but at the same time, I would have thought they're going to have a lot of big powers that be unhappy with what they've done. Of all people, the Scandinavian countries are so honest about inclusivity, and they don't just talk the talk, they walk the walk too. It doesn't surprise me that a Danish brand and a Scandi country have, quite frankly, shamed the rest of us."

"Once you're a bit older, it's funny to see things reborn. I'd hate to be that old man who's like, 'they're not wearing them like we did in the old days!' But trends and things forever move, and frankly, I'm pleased. Being an original terrace dweller, I'm pleased that our approach to trainers is having its moment in the sun. As I said at the beginning of this conversation, it wasn't just all just America, or hip-hop or B-Boys - there was this massive movement called football casuals wearing those trainers too."

"I think that's a great answer, and as always, Gary is such a great spokesman for our take on trainers as he's always trying to protect it and champion it. The thing I find really difficult about Blokecore is it's not just the fashion part they're doing. There was a guy on TikTok who was dressed in a Man City shirt, and he was trying to act like Liam Gallagher with a pint in his bedroom. I know, it's as awful as it sounds. I find it incomprehensible, to be honest. The world of football on the terraces for your usual bloke, for good and for bad, especially in the past, it was a dangerous place. You can't just suddenly say, 'I'm a bloke' because you've started dressing in Blokecore gear. If that guy had gone to most of the terraces across the country and acted like that, he literally would be knocked out.

This whole Blokecore thing is one of the most ludicrous things I've ever seen. When you try to do the whole mannerism, like it's almost a pastiche or a comedy - I can't get my head around it."

"I bloody hope not, Jack. *laughs*. For me, it even seems funny that we can sit here and talk about it."

"Well it's funny, I put a bet on yesterday, and I've gone for Spain. I think Spain plays the best football. They haven't got a striker, but I still think they are the best team. I'll be rooting for them after Wales are knocked out in the group stages."

For more similar to this and further reading, check out - Informing the Future - An Open Conversation With Gary Aspden at the adidas Made Originals Event