crooked tongues magazine News Features

The adidas Baltic Cup is one of those adidas Originals reintroductions that you don't see coming. Now known as the BC, we first saw the Baltic Cup in the Consortium Tabula Rasa pack that offered some significant reissues and alterations despite that unassumingly blank facade. And you knew that lead to more colourways, didn't you? But like last year's ZX 380 drops, the BC has been treated with a certain reverence. adidas Originals are aware that these might appeal to the everyman with their ageless silhouette, but it's the connoisseurs who appreciate the resonance of an obscure release like this, so there's no point decking it out in patent leather or football pitch themes. You just have to let a shoe like this be. We assume the Baltic made a comeback because of the Spezial tooling being readily available, but it adds some extra substance to the brand's terrace heritage offerings.

Having seen the scale of the handball arena in London's Olympic setup from overhead shots, it's clear that the sport — while fairly niche over here — is big in other parts of Europe, and the Baltic Cup took place between 1968 and 1989 before the tournament was renamed, and East Germany were the kings of it. We assume that the wall coming down changed the structure of the event, and despite limited success, Sweden hosted it a few times, and it's that nation that really seems to have embraced this shoe. It's Germany's success in handball that accounts for the excellence of adidas's shoes for the sport, and with the Handball 5 Plug resurrected for the Archive Pack, these and the Handball Spezial readily available this season in time for the Summer's impending sporting hype, they're a timely little history lesson in just how seriously adidas took sports beyond the more obvious pastimes. The pigskin suede, application of some original colours and leather details makes these another superior Originals retro that's set to drop next month — oh, and there's plenty more archive favourites set to trickle from the vaults throughout the year too...