Do YOU want to become the next "Sneaker freak of the week". Former freaks: Charles – Mr.67 Henry from Finland finds Air Jordan irrestistable Max - from Sweden InSane Balla - from the Bronx Linus - the Bomb Cameron - Pumping Reeboks Charles - Stenamark fan Pontus - crazy hair, crazy sneaks? Carmine - Brooklyn man? Jeff - the mad collector? Mike - Shake Fan? Duncan - Puma Power? Justin - sponsored by Nike? David - designs his own? Kinyatta - wants to be sponsored? Andrew - had scary Ewings? Fedry - not so normal from Normal? Marieke - wears New Balance 576 on stage Lim - his Kangaroos got jacked Greg - Skating Sneaks Luke - Sofa Sneaks Matt - Botkyrka style Jonas - crying for clogs Nikeboy - he knows what's up in freekin Baltimore Nick - he knows lil'penny personally! Maegan - creative in Converse. Pat - Footlocker Freak. Yusuke - is he gonna get his Air Max snatched? Somaya - the Bronx is her brand Fatima - loves a water fight Nina - tooth brush lady Tobbe - you can tell a tagger by his sneakers. Humpty - gangsters wear hi-tech now. Patrik - lacing is essential. Anna - Stan is her man. Pelle - the shoe tree guy. Micadelica - Adidas with fat laces are no 1. Fredrik - from skater to trainspotter. Pim - a modern man.

David, sneaker designer from Gothenburg on the West Coast (not the Best Coast) of Sweden, thinks the Garmont Sticky Weekend is a great shoe. Also, I think he might be ugly cause he didn't send me his picture. Your first sneakers? Asked my mother and she got lost in describing something cute Italian - red canvas, vulcanized rubber out sole. Size 31 or whatever. From my childhood summers in Italy I only remember ice cream, the beach and miniature plastic soldiers (that were too war indulging to be allowed in Sweden at that time - I was always the Japanese during WW II), but it's no wonder that the memory works selectively when it comes to that specific footwear. First sneakers I do remember was my Converse All-Stars when I was around ten. The play ground hype back then: 1980 when old skool was not yet a retro direction. Where do you shop for sneakers? Must admit to be reasonably (or even very) privileged in this field. A big chunk (and the most pleasant one) of my work consists of travelling around collecting info and getting new ideas, part of this is buying footwear I like. Best of all is obviously that my company pays (any sneaker freaks drooling out there?). If we're talking sports shoes ("new skool") and trekking direction, I tend to favour Intersport in Europe and Paramount in NY (extremely good selection and you save yourself the embarrassment of going up mid-town). For street/casual I like shopping in London/Amsterdam/Copenhagen. And actually, Sweden - and even Gothenburg where I live - is quite good. Why are sneakers important? There's no business like the shoe business and since I'm in the business it's very easy: You gotta get paid and designing/developing/selling footwear is how I work the trick. On a more general level the key word is comfortable. I refuse to wear anything that's not really, really nice and friendly to my feet. Even living in the sneaker era, that makes options limited since there are many aspects that are impossible to notice the first time you try the shoes on. The shoes may turn out to be too warm, for example. Sweaty feet isn't too cosy, on others or yourself. Your best sneaker story? Will trade this for my worst sneaker story. Qualification for World Cup 1998 in France and the once so proud and glorious Swedish national side in football was about to make up for disappointing results so far. Austria at home - easy, peasy. But then the number one striker Kennet Andersson let's some insane marketing manager from his brand convince him to play in yellow shoes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh, the horror! You can't play with two bananas and - all to logically following the universal sneaker ethics - he missed a penalty, was substituted, Sweden lost, adieu Paris. When Andersson was walking off the pitch some desperate soul (who's to blame him) in the crowd tried to hit him with his black loafer. An important statement, and personally I think this event caused my already orthodox traditionalist approach to football shoes (they are allowed to come in three colours: Black, black and black) turn fundamentalist. David says R E S P E C T to Air Jordan I. Top sneaker of all time It's impossible to make a fair top pick. Apart from that I see way too many shoes. One of the down sides of my job is some kind of fixation that make you come across as perverted. I mean, take a guy, place him in his favourite down-town hang out, let a girl walk by... His immediate reaction? To look at her feet (or rather more pointedly, shoes). Difficult to make anything apart from a fetischist of that. You gotta pay respect to the first generation Air Jordan, this was taking the game to a new level. Right now I've got my very eager eyes on a pair of Garmont Sticky Weekend (just the name is dope!), but haven't managed to find them in my size yet. Last time I was in China, one of the factories I visited was producing Deng Jiaoping (Chinese ping-pong world champion for women). It would be unspeakably cool to have a pair of them, but they didn't come in my size. Of the sneakers I possess it's without doubt a pair of Nikes, early (possibly first) generation ACG, that go under the far from inspiring name "Rough Walking". They're mid-cut, black nappa leather (except for two tiny logos in red) and extremely comfortable. How many 15-20, possibly more. David thinks you should keep your sneaks in here if you're the smelly type. How do you clean your sneaks? I don't. I don't get dirty and besides I'm not a big fan of shiny sneakers. Suppose that's plain play ground evolution. A favourite sport when I was a kid was stepping at other kids new sneakers - keeping that new sneaker - look for more than five minutes after meeting your friends was just not an option that entered in your mind. That would have been like snow in Summer. For all people with smelly sneakers (not mine, obviously) a tip is to put them in the freezer for 24 hours. When the germs are dead, so is the smell. (Another hot tip is too wash your feet regularly.) Submit your own opinions in the worldwide sneaker report