Spitfires and Hurricanes (81-84)

Not only could Pentland provide the financial backing Fireman needed but also, they had offices in Hongkong and Pusan, Korea the home of HS corporation and their factory. To head his development Paul recruited Steve Liggett, who would spend much of the next five years flying to and from Pusan where he stayed for months on end.

Orient express (77-83)

Reebok had struggled through the mid 70’s to fight increases in cost, inflation in the UK was running at over 10% and industrial relations between corporations and unions was at rock bottom. Every year Reebok’s prices went up while their competitions didn’t.  It was at the super show that salvation from this ever-increasing spiral was found. 

VICTORY G (OG) review:

The Victory GOG is a tribute to what I would say was the first Reebok to be created by Paul Fireman,  It was Paul who saw GORE-TEX running suits in 1980 and it was his challenge to My Dad and then Factory Manager Bob Johnson to come up with the shoe.  It was also Paul who insisted on changing the companies logo away from the ‘Starcrest’ and insisted on the union flag, in a window box on the lateral of the shoe, a feature that would be a Reebok trademark for the next 20years.

TOG 24

Within two weeks, bob had done it!  Stella group, then making Timberland eurohikers and millions of Nine West shoes agreed, we were off. I leapt on a plane with the prototypes and the next round of designs, met Stanley at the airport and a day after leaving the UK we were watching shoes roll off the sample line and two weeks later the production line. I flew back to the UK content that we had a business.

A new approach ’96

In the summer of ’96 I was offered the chance to visit the Outdoor Retailer show in Reno Nevada with our ski product manager Wally Bell.
Thanks though to the US and California especially, just as 15 years before they gave us aerobics and Reebok the leg up it needed. So that trip gave me (and others) the inspiration to make and sell a new class of footwear. Outdoor ‘approach’ trainers are now a staple of any outdoor store.

In search of the ultimate lightweight boot. (1996)

Mike Parson’s vision had long been to replace heavy leather mountain boots with lighter fabric based boots that would neither become saturated and ‘wet out’ like leather boots nor carry the inherent weight of thick leather.

Moving the market, the story of the KSB. (’95-’96)

What followed was several weeks of hour long meetings throwing idea’s around to come up with not just a new KSB3, but a whole range of new KSB’s that would target our competitors, Berghaus with Scarpa and also my Old buddy Chris Brasher. These boots would be sold in a new way, fitted by a foot gauge, Clarks style. In UK half sizes and fitted with wedges or shims. We led with the KSB launch at COLA that autumn and sales went ballistic. Mike’s insistence that we reach further had been right.

Welcome to the USA! (’95)

I drove the five hours home in a rental car, Walked into our little home, picked up and hugged my little two year old daughter. Who threw her arms around me for a massive cuddle and walked through to the kitchen. Jan turned around from the sink, smiled and said, “We’ve sold the house!”

Slow boat (shoe) to China. (’93-’95)

Our ancient limousine would chug its way through cricket ball sized rubble interspersed with boulders being broken up by men with sledgehammers and bicycle wheeled, rickshaw style wheelbarrows. While thousands of men chipped away at the mountainside by hand and the rickshaw crews dumped it in the sea. Huge billboards covered in layers of dust proclaimed the new container port of Yantian.