The start of a casual affair

Welcome to 1983, the Conservative party are cruising to a landslide victory securing Margaret Thatcher her second term of office as anti nuclear demonstrators are on the march throughout Europe, drawing numbers unprecedented since the sixties. An IRA bomb kills six at Harrods in London and CDs, dismissed by purists as a fad, have become generally available on the high street, though it is still unusual to find more than two varieties of lettuce and one of tomato on supermarket shelves. Two years before Live Aid Duran Duran, The Human League and Spandau Ballet are fighting it out in the charts while elder statesman Bowie is back, 'putting on his red shoes and dancing the blues'. Me? I'm putting on black Doctor Marten's brogues, Levi's, a Donkey jacket and check shirt and waiting for a bus to the football to watch Oxford United.

A commotion, shouts, feet on the march a swaggering swarm getting nearer and nearer, some breaking into a jog, other groups noisily commandeering taxis, foreign exchange students I guess but as they get closer I can see they're sans rucksack and they're all males, young males, younger than me even (I'm a fresh faced 20) they certainly look foreign, alien even. What in God’s name are they wearing? Then I hear the accent that’s not Boulogne cutting through the early evening air, that's Bermondsey, this is Millwall our opponents this evening. It becomes clear that the main group are planning to catch the same bus as me, so it's all aboard and standing room only.

I now get a chance to have a proper look at my fellow traveller's clothes, you have to believe me here, I've seen it all, (and worn most of it) punk PVC and safety pins, Mod revival dead-mans' suits and the frilly shirts of the much maligned new romantics. But this is all new to me, this mob are dressed like a bunch of golfers! That’s right I said golfers, and middle aged ones at that. From the waist up they're wearing an assortment of plain or Argyle check jumpers and cardigans, some with polo shirts and many with, forgive me if I'm dreaming this, lightweight roll neck sweaters.

Everything seems to be in a pastel shade, blue, lemon yellow even the odd bit of pink. Logos are everywhere. Pringle lions fighting to get themselves noticed on mazes of diamonds, Lyle and Scott eagles perch on chests and strangest of all, Lacoste crocodiles scuttling round those pristine white roll necks. Down below its all faded or bleached jeans or brightly coloured corduroys (some have three inch splits in the outer hem) and the footwear of choice seems to be suede dessert boots or trainers in dyed suede or white leather.

Soon after this I learnt that the group I had seen were known as football casuals. Every club in the country had them or soon would and I thought they were the coolest thing I'd ever seen. Shortly after this I became one of their number and for my twenty first birthday I received a blue Pierre Cardin jumper and I bought myself a pair of Patrick trainers and a Benetton polo shirt. It took me a while to get right but by '85 I was swanning around in Paul Smith, Marc O'Polo and Retour and have dressed 'casually' on and off to this day. I still haven't worn a roll neck sweater or put on a pair of red shoes for that matter. That reminds me, how do you 'dance the blues’.