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DOONSIDE 2010s

Having moved to Blacktown in 2014, you'd always occasionally see HS and 67 boys around Westpoint shopping centre. 

Particularly going to the cinemas and buying shoes. The most active and recognisable youth g*ngs were HS and eventually 67. Well, a year or so after I moved to Blacktown, I was hearing the mention of 67 more than HS, though I never went to Doonie either and only am recalling from when I lived in Blacktown.

If any of HS or 67 associates went any further west, the NF14 youth g*ng would be there, i.e., more recognised as ONEFOUR. You’d honestly hear dibble dabbles of their fallouts from being around the area. In my situation, it was from working at Mount Druitt Foot Locker.

Postcode war was a huge identity for Doonside youth, hence the 67 name, representing their postcode 2767. There was, and still is, a lot of pride associated with that postcode. I remember often seeing 67 tatted.

Now, lads, I know you're gonna say the fashion in Doonside was inspired by Inner Sydney. I don't want to acknowledge in every post that Inner Sydney brought their fashion to Western Sydney. It’s just that Western Sydney is widely associated with adlay fashion or Australian streetwear – blame the media for that. But what we did see in the 2010s is that music and fashion lived on the same thread. 

HS and 67 have been prolific in indirectly shaping what people in the area and surrounding suburbs wore. It goes without saying that when in high school, many people want to emulate what their environment labelled as cool. And it just happened that this was what the HS and 67 boys were wearing. 

You may be familiar with Hooligan Hefs and Hooligan Skinny. Both part of the mainstream Western Sydney artists that dominated across Australian music in the late 2010s. Their music helped bring mass attention across Australia to what a g*ngster looked like: catapulted the Nike TN, ASICS Gels, bally, tech fleeces and puffer jackets. Honestly, most of it was what their counterparts in the UK were wearing. It turned into something every youth wanted to cop. Obviously there are other g*ngs that helped pioneer this as well, but given the context of youth g*ngs, it wouldn’t be appropriate here. 

The end of the 2010s was really when adlay fashion became prolific across Australia, and the rise of drill is a heavy reason for that. You guys remember when Hefs released "Tell Em I'm Doing Eetswa"? Every f*cking teen and child was saying that phrase. Did my head in.

One thing I just saw while searching for Doonside statistics. In 2020, Blacktown City Council released a local character statement with survey results from Doonside residents. Only 28% said they always felt safe walking down their own street. 56% said sometimes. 14% said never. Make of that what you will. 

Anyways, brain dump end. WP’s gonna take a nap now.

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