A Room, a Final, and the Art of Showing Up
An afternoon at The Africa Centre during final week. Conversation, music, and a final that refused to settle.
By mid-afternoon at The Africa Centre, South London felt warmer than it had any right to be in January. People drifted in early and stayed longer than planned. Conversations overlapped. Music settled into the background, never demanding attention.
Converse has always moved like this when it’s at its best. Sport first, then everything that grows out of it. The original basketball brand, yes, but also a name that has lived across courts and pavements, skate spots and studios. A shoe that belongs to athletes and artists in the same breath, because sport culture has never stayed in one lane for long.
You can trace that through what they back today. Basketball through Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Shai 001 moment. Skate through CONS and a team that feels built from real scenes, not assembled for a lookbook. Alexis Sablone’s signature and collaborations with the likes of Louis Lopez and Sage Elsesser. Then the quieter layer too, supporting personal projects and local energy when it makes sense. It is less about claiming culture, more about keeping it moving.
This was The Kickback, Converse’s quiet entry into football culture during final week. Not a launch. Not a takeover. Just a space, opened with intent.
The fireside chat did not feel rehearsed. No scripts. No brand soundbites. Kenny Annan Jonathan spoke plainly about community, ownership and culture as something you build over time, not something you borrow when it suits you. The audience leaned in because it felt genuine.
As the afternoon rolled on, the room loosened. DJs AB Dollars and MBLAC took control without announcement. Some people moved closer to the speakers. Others stayed put, drinks in hand, mid-conversation. Chuck Taylors, scuffed, clean, customised, moved easily through it all. From panel to dancefloor, from crowd to corners. A shoe long familiar to people who move between worlds.
Nothing felt rushed. That mattered. It is easy to turn sport into spectacle. It is harder to host what sport actually does, which is bring people together and give them somewhere to connect without forcing the moment.
The final was always the anchor. Not as spectacle, but as something to gather around. A shared moment placed at the centre of a day shaped by conversation, music and community.
When the game came on, attention narrowed. Phones appeared, but the music stayed low. Conversations dropped a level. People leaned in. Heads turned. This was not silence, and it was not background noise either. It was focus, shared.
When Senegal eventually took the lead in extra time, the reaction landed in a wave. Everyone understood what had come before it. Disallowed chances. A missed penalty at the end of normal time. Rain pouring as the game drifted unresolved into extra time.
What followed was tension rather than celebration. Senegal holding on. The clock stretching. Eyes returning to the screen again and again. It was nail-biting without being loud. Less about allegiance, more about witnessing a final that refused to settle.
'Football culture is not something you announce yourself into. You show up, you listen, and you let the room lead.'
When the whistle finally went, the release was subtle but real. A few nods. Exhaled breaths. The shared sense that something rare had just unfolded, not because of who won, but because of how it happened.
That was where Converse’s approach landed. Football culture is not something you announce yourself into. You show up, you listen, and you let the room lead. The Kickback did not feel like an activation. It felt like a gathering that happened to be supported by a brand comfortable enough to stay in the background.
As Super Midz closed the night, the space loosened once more. Laughter. Movement. Familiar faces becoming new ones.
The Chuck Taylor has been here before. In rooms like this. At moments like this. Always present. Never forced. Sport, at its best, is community first. Everything else follows. Football did not need reinventing. Converse did not try to. They just showed up and let the culture do the rest.
