It's all in the swoosh...By Saul Wilks

I knew I should have probably stopped myself when I opted to buy the Nike Tennis Vintage a month or so back, having previously kicked my once rampant addiction to training shoes. In days past the three stripe calling card of Adidas boxes cluttered up every available space in my hallway, having amassed a greedy selection during my football going days.

The times they change and with it usually comes different surroundings and the styles that you adhered to start losing their appeal, so as football terraces gave way to dance floors and weekends meant a more varied social scene away from bowling around towns and cities looking for mischief in the name of my team, so did my hearty collection of Adidas rarities.

I loved that cross over period, where that football look was still relevant but no longer controlled the labels and clothing I was getting into and morphed from one look to the other... This is about the time I started mixing and matching, wearing things because I loved them for the right reasons and not because they held connotation to a scene I was involved in.

Since those heady days and now being a little older and wiser, training shoes and sports footwear have never really interested me much apart from the odd pairs of New Balance and the tennis trainers of Superga. Aside from these my casual footwear selection has always contained the likes of Gordini, Clarks Og and pointer to name a few, but I've always been fond of some of the models Nike has put out in the past.

During match going days, It was a heinous thing to contemplate favouring the Nike swoosh over the three stripes of Adidas, obviously in juvenile ignorance to the fact that Nike were favoured alongside Adidas by the original match going lads, so with my initial purchase of the tennis classic's came a fresh interest in training shoes and obviously triggered off that old addiction that once firmly had hold of me in days gone by.

One pair that always tickled my fancy was that of the challenger waffle in the yellow and royal blue colourway, a most beautiful combination of colours and perfect for the style of trainer that it adorned. Inspired by my recent sortie into uncharted Nike territory, I couldn't resist in stumping up for a pair that were on eBay and so I took the plunge and nabbed them for a paltry 40 quid, which I was genuinely made up with.

Secondly, after a weekend spent in Manchester and paying a visit to that old favourite Oi Polloi, while in there I was instantly drawn to these pre montreal racer's in this fine colour scheme of orange ember and white. These are really lightweight and look proper ace when on - I'm looking forward to throwing them in the mixer soon when the rain decides to do one and the ground is a little less sodden as I can't see them keeping my trotters dry in the current weather.

To summarise, I'm going to try and leave trainer purchases to a bi-monthly treat but alas I feel as though I've most definitely fallen back into old habits... Although this time I think I'm in control enough not to be up scrolling on line auctions until sunrise, and that can only be a good thing.

We'll just say trainers will be a guilty pleasure and we'll most definitely be keeping it that way for now- still, it's nice to have some colour amongst all the tan suede's and leathers I've got going on in the footwear department!