1996 – Geoff Rowley – Airwalk.

Near enough fresh off the plane to America and living in California full time, a 20-year-old Geoff Rowley was blessed with this signature beast from Airwalk. A far cry from the slimmed down, simple numbers he would later become famous for with Vans, these well-cushioned fellas look like they were designed for hiking and would survive a nuclear blast. I wonder how many pairs of these are left in existence?

UK Pro Skate Shoes

2000/2001 – Danny Wainwright – Vans.

This brief history lesson is borrowed from Danny Wainwright’s own Instagram – @dannywainwright – in case you needed telling.

“This was the 1^st one that came out in 2000 but not even close to what I wanted to do, I wanted a presto type shoe with running profile, super light and with a sock liner like a Huarache but it turned out more like a house brick that you could sink a ship with. Good times. Don’t know how I could walk in these let alone skate in them.”

“My second vans shoe from years back, better than the first but still not quite as I’d wanted, the tongue felt like a full sized sleeping bag rolled up and stuffed in my shoe but the shoe did work quite well.”

2003 – Tom Penny – éS.

Everyone knows the infamous story about éS repeatedly asking Tom Penny to have a think about what he wanted his debut pro shoe to look like, and him just sending them a Timberland boot (or Columbian hiking boot, truth be told) for the design team to work with, don’t they? Well in the summer of 2003, after years of designs, redesigns and all the rest, Sole Tech unleashed the first Penny shoe on the world. Obviously taking influence from Tom’s beloved Accel model, with some Columbian hiking boot genetics in the mix, the shoes flew off the shelves all over the globe to the waiting droves of eager Penny enthusiasts. éS issued a revamped second version of the shoe in 2004, just before Tom jumped ship to join the emerging Supra Footwear roster.

UK Pro Skate Shoes

2004 – Brian Sumner – Adio.

A few years behind his fellow Liverpool brethren Geoff Rowley, Brian Sumner landed himself a couple of pro shoes on the Tony Hawk era incarnation of Adio. Admittedly, The Tao wasn’t too bad all in all, though Brian’s foray into the signature footwear game will probably be best remembered for The Sumner, a suitably sized boot for the early-to-mid 2000s era from which it hails, the most memorable colourway of which came complete with an impossible to ignore Union Jack on the side.

2006 – Danny Brady and Nick Jensen – Lakai.

Though their joint section on Lakai’s hugely anticipated first full length offering ‘Fully Flared’ was still a whole year away, in 2006 Nick Jensen and Danny Brady were given a special ‘Royal Family’ edition of the Telford shoe as part of the company’s first collaboration with Blueprint Skateboards. Several more Blueprint orientated collaborations were to follow over the coming years, but the release of this first Telford model is definitely the most memorable, mainly owing to the Dan Magee crafted detailing on the shoe itself, alongside the striking box artwork, and the fact that the duo embarked on a brief UK tour to promote its release.

2006 – Sidewalk – Globe.

Sometimes an opportunity comes around that’s simply too good to decline. 2006 saw the arrival of the Globe X Sidewalk Finale shoe. – “These twats will survive acid war” – say no more.

2007 – Vaughan Baker – Emerica.

Emerica was the home of Vaughan Baker and his nimble feet throughout most of his professional skateboarding career, and following the release of Blueprint’s ‘Lost and Found’ DVD back in 2005, he was granted his own collaborative colourway of their Trans-Em shoe. The original shoe itself was one Vaughan was fond of wearing, though with the involvement of Dan Magee this 2007 reworking had a distinctive Blueprint feel to it; the innersoles even featured some artwork drawn by V-man himself, which had been previously incorporated into Blueprint graphics.

2010 – Joe Gavin – Etnies.

Before Joe Gavin upped footwear sticks joined the Swoosh in 2013, he’d been part of the Etnies family for well over a decade. In 2010, his on-going service to Etnies was rewarded with his own Manchester based colourway of the RVM shoe as part of their first ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ project, which paired Joe and Manchester with Willow and his native Berlin. Obviously the shoe featured the famous Mancunion ‘worker bee’, with the predominantly blue colourway chosen as a nod to Manchester City Football Club.

2006/2010 – Jody Smith – DC

Throughout his extensive tenure representing DC, Jody Smith managed to rack up two separate colourways – the Denimtash in 2006 and the Crown in 2010.

The appropriately named Denimtash, as the name suggests, incorporated denim into their European Collective series (not sure what the ‘tash’ part of the name is about), with the more straight forward Cornish flag sporting Crown colourway arriving a few years later in 2010.

2011 – Supra – Scott ‘Horsey’ Walker.

Through his involvement in Todd Bratrud’s The High Five board outfit (now Send Help), back around 2011, Essex’s Scott ‘Horsey’ Walker found himself in the States on an increasingly regular basis, and wound up included in Supra’s first Three Amigos project, alongside Furby and Spencer Hamilton, earning himself a one off colourway of their Amigo shoe in the process. The simple navy shoe was customised to include a Union Jack on the heel (obviously), as well as the Essex ‘Three Swords’ crest on the innersole.

2011 – John Rattray – éS.

So 2011 came around, and having parted ways with Osiris, Wee Rattbox re-entered the pro shoe game with his hugely popular ‘Ecosse’ model for éS. The shoe itself was a fairly straightforward affair and came accompanied with a video by Alex Craig (of H’min Bam fame) that also featured cameos from Div Adam and Rick McCrank, amongst many other notable heads. Also in 2011, éS released a special Rattray colourway of the Square Two in royal blue and white, which also featured the Saltire on the tongue. Unfortunately éS was placed on ‘creative hiatus’ for four years not long after both of these shoes were released, sending John back into the footwear wilderness for another brief spell.

2012 – Danny Brady – Lakai.

Over the years, Lakai have released several shoes sporting the Brady name, though these 2012 Belmont XLK’s definitely come to mind ahead of the others (for us at least, you may disagree). A simple, slim shoe offered in black and grey, the Belmont both skated great and also looked dapper down the boozer – what more do you need from a T’Brady endorsed skate shoe?

2012 – Chewy Cannon – adidas.

In 2012, adidas rewarded Chewy Cannon’s years of dedication to the Three Stripe cause by giving Gorleston’s finest his very own colourway of their Campus Vulc shoe. Chewy has obviously had more colourways since this one, though as this was his first, adidas threw young Louis a massive party in Liverpool in conjunction with his then shop sponsor of Lost Art which took in a packed out session at the city’s New Bird spot and a typically rowdy party/skate jam afterwards at the nearby Camp and Furnace venue. Check the Hold Tight Henry produced video clip of the proceedings here.

2015 – Lucien Clarke – Supra.

The most recent member of the UK scene to find his name embroidered on some footwear is Palace Skateboards pro Lucien Clarke, who came correct late last year with a special PWBC edition of Supra’s Quattro shoe. Aside from the shoe itself, which incorporates 3M detailing to help keep you easy to spot to motorists during your winter night missions, the launch for the collaboration saw James Edson and Daniel ‘Snowy’ Kinloch raid the photographic archives and piece together a PWBC retrospective exhibition which Supra took on tour around Europe in a typically lively fashion.