Sadly these days many genuine fans are priced out as the Touts snap up any available season tickets - the fookers have thousands now. The tourists are happy to pay the silly prices for these tickets and don't get me started on the merchandise.
Does anybody remember the Lonsdale shop off of Carnaby Street in Soho? I started going in there in my mid teens, I think it was down Beak Street. It was a tiny little place that was there from the 1960’s until 2002 when Ashley bought the name. Those were the days when the brand was synonymous with British boxing.
I went out on the lash with a load of mates in Stoke Newington, London, before the Mayweather v McGregor "fight" and I ended up buying a red Lonsdale mesh vest and wearing it all night. I got bought loads of drinks from randoms and girls taking pictures with me, don't knock it, that vest cost me under a tenner and it paid for itself within half an hour.
It’s nothing to do with money as I’m sure you can buy less crappy clothing for less money in Primark. It’s more to do with having no taste or style and repping a dreadful brand while lining Mike Ashley’s pockets. I’m not sure why boxing fans should be judged any differently to anyone else.
Yeah, the clothes are just poorly fitting and look terrible. It’s not snobbery. Though I needed some new trackies for the gym, picked up a pair of under armour ones and they were £70, which is a rip off...
I rocked up to work on a baking hot summers day laying pavers with a pair of Lonsdale two-stripe shorts and was labelled a gypo.never wore them again.
I always use to get lots of boxes of Lonsdale shoes and tracksuites for Christmas. Guess that means my mum and dad were poor. I thought they were very comfortable clothes to wear, liked them.
I think with Lonsdale it's more the style, the fit is pretty bad and they're not exactly great looking when you compare them to other similar brands. The Lonsdale trainers are godawful, a lad at my old place wore a pair of white Lonsdale slip on trainers and they got set on fire, luckily he thought it was funny. That said, as I mentioned earlier, I purchased a mesh red Lonsdale vest and it was a big hit. I'll never look down on someone for the clothes they wear but, like with brands such as Hackett and Burberry, certain types of people wearing them can give them a bad image.
The thing is that Lonsdale stuff isn’t that cheap particularly, it’s just not very good. I used to work at Sports Direct from about 2006-2010, so towards the back of end of the ‘peak’ Lonsdale fashion era if you could call it that and we used to sell tonnes of the stuff, even though there were plenty of cheaper brands - Umbro etc. As ejc says, their trainers are particularly dire. Back then, every trainer was a knock off of a Nike or Adidas one. The most popular ones, the Wimbledons were knock off Stan Smiths, but still cost the best part of £30 for an adult pair. Same with the Camdens, which were naff Adi Racers. Just couldn’t get my head around it, you could buy similar cheap and nasty trainers for a tenner on the next aisle, or you could splash out another £20 or £30 and have the legit Nike or Adidas versions.
