ALMOST 20 years ago Paul Burnham and his Pommy mates walked into T Shirt City on Hindley St and asked for 50 shirts to be printed with the Union Jack flag and the words "Atherton's Barmy Army".

It was lunch on day one of the fourth Ashes Test at Adelaide Oval on January 26, 1995, England was trailing 2-0 in the series and their supporters decided they had to take a stand.

T Shirt City owner Tim Knight was sitting behind the counter and asked when they wanted the shirts to be ready.

"They said 'if you could have them done by tea that'd be good'," Knight this week recalled.

"They decided 'we've got to do something about this and get some unity to stick it up the Aussies' so we designed their logo which is now patented and trademarked on four continents, and printed the shirts.

"What we'd normally do in two weeks we did in two hours and they came back, got the shirts and walking back to the oval they sold them for $20 each."

By the time they got there, they'd sold out.

"Then I got a phone call from Paul saying 'we need some more f***in' shirts'," Knight said.

And that was how the Barmy Army - the English cricket team's colourful, vocal and most importantly loyal band of supporters who follow them all over the world - was born.

The T Shirt City team worked through the night to print another 200 shirts and as word spread, 900 English cricket fans visited the shop to sign a 'I was here' board.

"It was amazing," Knight said.

"I would suggest in wholesale terms, we did three months' of figures in a week."

Mike Gatting made a century, England won the Test and things snowballed to the point where Gatting and some of the players even visited the shop after the game.

"We had shirts, hats, shorts, stubbie coolers and when they won, there would have been 400 people out the front wanting stuff," Knight said.

"The England cricket team was staying across the road and when the bus pulled up all the fans stopped and sang Rule, Britannia! and the hair on the back of your neck stood up."

Burnham, fellow co-founder Dave Peacock and their newly formed Barmy Army then took thousands of shirts packed into boxes to the fifth Test in Perth.

"For a lot of people it helped them pay for the long trip from Adelaide to Perth and when we got to Perth we sold them outside the ground," Burnham said.

The Barmy Army had begun to form at the third Test in Sydney but was "born" in Adelaide a fortnight later.

"We got thrown together on the Sydney hill then on the hill at Adelaide is where everybody got to know each other because that's when we started singing the songs together as opposed to little groups," said Burnham, 48, from West London.

"The T-shirt and Barmy Army business started in Hindley Street and Tim (Knight) was instrumental in helping us with the design of the shirt and the logo that we still use now.

"We had the captain's name on there to start with so it was 'Atherton's Barmy Army'.

"The Barmy Army was a named chanted at football grounds already but it was also the Australian media calling us 'barmy' because we were supporting a team that was losing and 'army' because there were a lot of us.

"I think we came across a bit wacky to everybody because they couldn't understand the enthusiasm we were showing."

In two decades, the Barmy Army has grown to include four 'communities', and has three full-time staff including managing director Burnham who organises Tours, events and charity work from the UK.

During this Ashes Tour, the Barmy Army is raising money for The Broad Appeal and Motor Neurone Disease, and also supports the McGrath Foundation and breast cancer.

"We have a first class members community where they pay 25 pound a year and there are 3500 members," Burnham said.

"Then we have a club class membership which is 30,000 people who receive our newsletter, then our Facebook community is 52,000 and Twitter community is 47,000."

Burnham and Peacock have been back to Australia for every Ashes Series since the 1994/95 battle and will arrive in Adelaide with up to 2000 members of the Barmy Army from Monday.

On Wednesday they will take to the field at Uni Oval in North Adelaide to play the Fanatics - Australia's version of the Barmy Army - in the Crabbies Bashes.

"It's something we always do the day before the Tests," Burnham said.

"It's a best-of-five series and we're 1-0 down after Brisbane. The Fanatics got 260 off 20 overs and we got nowhere near them so they're taking it seriously.

"Everybody's welcome to come along, it won't be the quality cricket they'll see on Thursday but at least it's a cricket game in the sun, and there'll be a bit of a sing-off as usual so it will be good fun."

After England's first Test debacle in Brisbane last week, Burnham went to Sydney to organise the end-of-tour party which will be held on January 7 before most members of the Barmy Army are due to head home.

"I wouldn't say we're going strong but we're still going," he said ahead of the Adelaide Test starting Thursday.

"It means a lot to Dave and I because not everybody who was on that first tour comes out now but it's evolved over the years and the same concept is still there - that we support the England cricket team whatever the result."

When in Adelaide, the Barmy Army takes over PJ O'Brien's on East Tce which becomes its "headquarters", and it frequents The Cathedral Hotel during the lunch break.

"I think it's going to be a massive Test because England can't afford to lose this one, they don't want the danger of going 2-0 down then off to Perth where Australia's record is very strong," Burnham said.

"This team has bounced back and shown its character on tour, famously in India a few years ago when they went 1-0 down and came back, so we're very confident they're going to be competing toe-to-toe with Australia in Adelaide and hopefully we come out on top."

As for the sledging debate that overshadowed the first Test in Brisbane, Burnham said what happens on the field should stay there.

"It should be left on the field and they run the danger of if it gets too aggressive, the fans start arguing amongst themselves," he said.

"The great thing about coming over here to Australia is you can talk cricket at the bars and it's all very friendly.

"I hope they compete at 100 per cent but I think they need to calm down a little bit and get it all into perspective."