Come closer. There is a thing about this shoe that nobody mentions, and it is the mesh. Look at the upper and you will see the weave change as it goes back — wide open at the toes, where air has to get in, and drawn tight at the heel, where the shoe has to hold. One piece of fabric, two minds. Whisper it: most uppers are the same all the way round and simply hope.

The rest keeps its own counsel. There is a larger medial mud guard built into the shoe rather than stuck onto it, and the lateral drag pad is thickened and shaped to follow the foot, because the sliding stop is what ends a shoe's life and it always ends it in the same place.

Underneath, Energy Cell EVA sits in the forefoot to take the impact and hand it back as a spring; R-DST+ foam runs through the midsole, an OrthoLite molded insole sits on top of it, the drop is 9 millimetres, and a Duralast high-density rubber outsole grips every surface there is.

The split 4D Support Chassis 2.0 runs under the foot and across it, and an Endofit inner sock holds the whole thing together from the inside. Black on black with pirouette, or white with surf spray and tofu.

Wesel I tell straight, without any of my usual tricks. The town was almost entirely destroyed in 1945. The Willibrordi cathedral was rebuilt afterwards stone by stone, over decades, from its own rubble. That is not a ghost story. That is a fact, and it is heavier than any story I have.

They say the town never left it.

“One piece of fabric, two minds — open at the toes, drawn tight at the heel.”

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