Noel Gallagher quit drugs by buying trainers.

The former Oasis star claims his obsession with footwear helped him kick his cocaine habit in 1998, with him replacing one expensive addiction with another.

He told The Independent newspaper: ''When I gave up drugs I had to obsess about something, and I'm not into cars, not into jewellery and all that kind of thing, and I had loads of guitars, so I set off on a quest to collect adidas trainers.''

However, Noel's love of footwear soon spiralled out of control and he started spending hours scouring shops for new trainers instead of sound-checking and doing interviews with his band.

He laughed: ''I had silly amounts - you couldn't open a cupboard without 20 pairs of adidas trainers falling out.''

The rocker even used to put two pairs of trainers in each box to hide the scale of his habit from his wife Sarah McDonald, but recently decided to downsize his collection because it was taking over his life.

Noel said: ''I kept the best ones back, I've probably got about 20 or 30 real vintage pairs, and I put the rest back out there - I gave them to charity shops. Funnily enough when I go to Camden market I still see some of my pairs there and I've been very tempted to buy them back.''

Now the 'Little By Little' singer has hit 46, he is trying to make the most of his love of trainers while he still can.

He revealed he once spent a drunken night with Paul Weller and the musicians ''scientifically worked out that the cut-off age is 50 for wearing trainers''.