"George appeared in The Fashion of Football written by Paolo Hewitt and Mark Baxter." Here is an exclusive extract.

Gentleman Georgie

One Saturday morning, Mark went to talk to his tailor, George Dyer, about the history of his craft at his Threadneedleman shop on Walworth Road. "He's never dressed a footballer as such but he might have some nuggets". Mark explained over the phone.

The next day, Mark rang again, told me that George's story was noting if only for one detail.

At school, the budding tailor had gone through the usual route from Mod to Skin to Suedehead before settling on the Soulboy style. In 1972, he entered the cloth trade. George first worked on Berwick Street then went to Brixton, where he recalls a lot of youths with Caribbean roots ordering the Rude Boy look-that was a suit made out of Tonik material, a three button jacket, the trousers short enough to show off the socls and a pork-pie hat perched on top.

"interestingly," George had noted, "the Brixton boys would have side vents on their jackets but the Peckham boys would have a centre vent. So, when they went out to a blues or a party they would be able to identify each other. A small but very impotant detail. Lots of rivalry and very creative tailoring."