First it was the teddy boys, suedeheads and then the mods and rockers. Battles on the seafronts all over england with lads wearing winkle pickers and ben shermans. Then you had punks, with doc martens, straight cut combats and fred perry harringtons. And skins, which came a little bit later after mods, but kept the same sort of style but with a more mean edge. The music and fashion was forever changing during the 60's and early 70's with bands such as the clash, the kinks and the rolling stones. Then you had the beatles which was more of a psychadelic sound and formed a hippie culture. But then in 1977 was about the year that everything was to change.

Liverpool, during this time their red side of the city were playing in europe on a regular basis and what the scousers found were unheard of european brands such as adidas, lacoste, stone island, sergio tachinni etc. They used to rob these shops and bring back to england all this new found clobber and soon enough you got a few little independent retailers importing it, and the early casual look was born.

Most of lads had ditched their levis sta prest and donkey jackets and were now wearing brown lois cords and staight cut jeans, with tachinni tracky tops and lacoste polo's and training shoes. Whenever scousers played down south esspecially at places like stamford bridge or upton park, they would stand out like a sore thumb. And it was at that time you could tell which team you followed by the way you dressed. As teams like chelsea in particular were still mostly punks and skins up untill the late 70's and early 80's. As the same with most of the south, it was slowly catching on, but at first was looked apon as quite gay.

Moving on about '83 and most of the country had caught on the phenomenon that had swept football stadiums across the country, and brands such as ellesse, cp company, henri lloyd, pringle and diadora making a big impact. You had shops opening up in most citys like lilly whites in piccadilly, and nick-nack in wardour street. Manchester also had some good places, one in particular is hurleys who had a lot of ellesse ski wear and then started getting lacoste, but the markets were making a killing on that already as the stalls were mostly run by football lads themselves.

The casual look by now had pretty much dominated english working class lads up and down the country and it all came from the street. It had no media coverage, no outside infulence what so ever. It was purley british kids, making a statement and looking for the new most exciting label to try and outdo the other teams supporters. By now, how you dressed was just as, and if not more important than fighting at football.

After hillsbrough a lot of peoples attitudes changed, and football went into a bit of sate of shock. Then after Heysell english teams were banned from competing in europe, it stopped a lot of people going to football. And by now, music such as the happy mondays, the stone roses and the whole acid house movement was coming into full swing. This point Britain was getting a reputation for bringing violence to wherever they went abroad, and thatcher declared war on football hooligans.

The next few years up untill the early 90's saw a massive drop in football attendaces, as all seater football stadiums were brought in. Commercialisation and chain stores such as jjb and jd sports were opeing up selling lacoste polos and adidas trainers to every to dick and harry and many felt that their identity had been stolen. The rave culture was something new and somethingfresh, and venues such as the hacienda in machester were a mecca for E'd up kids in stone island jumpers dancing away to 'i wana be adored' by the stone roses.

With the rise of drug culture, and the introdution of over the top policing and cctv, it was quiet on the hooligan front. As a lot of people took it as an opportunity to make some money. Some people saw it as if acid killed the casual movement. By the mid 90's

swansea was here first because it was a seaside resort and then developed as a metals centre. swansea has a much greater industrial history with metallurgists, engineers, scientists and enterpenturs with swansea becoming a very cultured place. immigrants into the swansea area came from england and so swansea is very welsh and british. swansea is on the greater scale with two huge sweeps of bays either side in swansea bay and carmarthen bay. also the gower penisula and the swansea valley.

where as, cardiff developed after swansea and is a "johnny come lately city". cardiff was just created to get the coal out of the south wales valleys, to ship it overseas. immigrants into cardiff were foreigners not british, coming from overseas into tiger bay on the coal boats. cardiff humped coal into ships which was manual unskilled work and was never as cultured as swansea. cardiff has raped, milked and hijacked wales for decades. the cardiff media will never acknowledge swansea on the same level as cardiff. cardiff is a small overhyped city.

SUPPORT THE SWANS AND DON'T SUPPORT ANYONE ELSE

I LOVE BRITAIN BEACAUSE.................


BEING BRITISH.

Being British is about driving in a German car to an Irish pub for a Belgian beer, then travelling home, grabbing an Indian curry or a Turkish kebab on the way, to sit on Swedish furniture and watch
American shows on a Japanese TV.

And the most British thing of all? Suspicion of all things foreign!

Only in Britain can a pizza get to your house faster than an ambulance.

Only in Britain do supermarkets make sick people walk all the way to the back of the shop to get their prescriptions while healthy people can buy cigarettes at the front.

Only in Britain do people order double cheeseburgers, large fries and a DIET coke.

Only in Britain do banks leave both doors open and chain the pens to the counters.

Only in Britain do we leave cars worth thousands of pounds on the drive and lock our junk and