How to send information from CSS-styled button to PHP-script

I am trying to read information from a css-styled web page and send it to a PHP script to be handled. However I can not figure how to do it.

This is the menu button located on the page

<ul class="vmenu">
<li> <a href="#"><span class="l"></span><span class="r"></span><span class="t">Group 1</span></a> </li>
<li> <a href="#"><span class="l"></span><span class="r"></span><span class="t">Group 2</span></a> </li>
</ul>...

and this is how I am trying to do it, but it changes it to a visible button and does not fit the styling.

   <form name="sidemenu" action="index.php"  method="post">
      <ul class="vmenu">
       <?php while (!empty($categoryname[$categointeger])) { ?>
            <li> <input type="submit" name="categoryname" class="button" value="<?php echo"$catei开发者_开发技巧d[$categointeger]"?>"></li>
       <?php } ?>
      </ul>
   </form>

How can I read the information without touching the styling of the page and not using <a href="#">.