Irish League resurgence boosting sales of retro memorabilia in new football shop

It’s Friday afternoon and I’m finishing off my working week chatting to two fellow football fans about the time I watched Leicester City draw 3-3 with Arsenal ... on Ceefax.

The location is the NI Classic Shirt Co in Smithfield Market, Belfast where the one and only topic up for discussion is football. It’s a conversational well that is unlikely to run dry given the numerous prompts that adorn the walls, the rails and the display counters.

Northern Ireland might not be as big a force in world football as the likes of Germany, France and Brazil, but per capita the Province punches well above its weight in terms of a fanaticism for football, be it the Irish League, the national team or an adopted team in England or Scotland.

The shop which was opened in August by Ryan Gilmore, 32, and his business partner Pete McDonald, 38, taps into the rich demand for memorabilia amongst the nation’s football mad population.

It leans towards the local game, celebrating the old kits and legendary stars of the Irish league, and immortalising national heroes such as Best, Whiteside, Jennings and more latterly Evans, McAuley and Healy.

Ryan explained how a friendship forged in football gave birth to what is believed to be the only dedicated retro football shop in Northern Ireland.

He said: “Pete and I are both Bangor fans – that’s a real labour of love – but we didn’t know each other until we met through work. We worked together for years in Yell where we pretty much talked about football non-stop.

“The idea to start selling shirts online came after I’d been over to watch the Frampton fight (in September 2018) and I went to the Classic Football Shirts Shop in Manchester. It’s 50 times bigger than the shop we have here.

“I was with my fiancee at the time, now my wife, and I said to her I’m going to try and do something like this online. I know how to do marketing, I love football, social media is easy enough when you know what you’re doing so I thought, I’ll give it a go. She didn’t object so that was a good start.

“I started doing the shirts online last December. I got a bit of traction so I applied for a stall at St George’s in December and again in August.

“I was getting married in July so I probably should have only been concentrating on that and nothing else, but then I found out this unit in Smithfield was available.

“Just before I was getting married – I think it was only a couple of days – I signed for the unit. Just before we got married I had to break the news to my wife that I now owned a shop.

“Around that time I spoke to Pete about coming on board. He said, ‘you don’t know what you’re doing, I don’t know what I’m doing, let’s see what we can do together’.”

Asked if the dynamic changes when something you love becomes your job, Pete said: “I could never see us getting bored of it, I think I’ll forever be in that bubble, it’s something I love.

“People work in office jobs and talk about football all day, that’s what we were like. Now we’ve got a set up where we can talk about football to whoever comes in and it’s part of the job.”

Ryan commented: “On the business side of things we’re talking to clubs, striking up partnerships with other companies. Everything revolves around a love of football.”

Pete said: “It’s good getting into the business side of it. There’s a buzz that comes from speaking to commercial managers of football clubs, trying to strike up partnerships.

“It’s really easy to speak to people over here, quite a few clubs have heard of us.”

He continued: “We’ve four clubs from the Irish League we’re in partnership with – Portadown, Linfield, Glentoran and Cliftonville – and we’re branching across into England too.”

At the moment the NI Classic Shirt Co is a part time venture, with the shop open on Thursday afternoons (12.30 to 5.30pm) and Fridays and Saturdays from 9.30 to 5.30pm.

Pete said: “We’re hoping to get full time. We’re going after clubs in England, Scotland and the League of Ireland as well as more local clubs. If they put in orders of a lot of units that can allow us to get a regular income and go full time.

“We want to do as much Irish League stuff as we can with every club, that’s including the Championship. It would be great to get everyone on board. We’ve got a concept that can work with any club in the world.”

Some of the shop’s best selling items are art prints of Subbuteo players from the Irish League or national team in kits from the eras in which they played.

Another popular line sees a selection of classic kits displayed on coasters, mugs, T-shirts and art prints.

And for those who like memorabilia they can wear the shop has a great range of old shirts, some match-worn.

The strike partners leading the retro football revolution in Northern Ireland talked about some of their key team mates in their bid to climb the commercial ladder.

Ryan said: “Tom Woods (@homelessghostprints) does the Subbuteo prints. I approached him way back in the summer. I saw what he was doing with teams all over the UK. I commissioned him to do the Northern Ireland one which is a fantastic seller for us.

“It’s kits from various eras worn by 48 of the best ever players – there’s nothing like this available anywhere else.

“For the Subbuteo designs the club sends us photos of the players, we send them onto Tom and he works his magic.

“We’ve also got him to do some Irish Leagues teams that we’ve teamed up with.”

Pete continued: “With Hally Designs, they produce artwork featuring classic kits and you can turn them into prints or coasters or mugs or T-shirts.

“They also do art prints of classic moments like when we beat England 1-0.

“We persuaded them to branch into the Irish League.”

Ryan said: “There’s always new ideas out there, new brands to team up with.”

In one of the framed prints by Hally Designs I spot the dubious yellow Broomhill kit which Glenavon wore in 1999. It’s a kit I still own, but can’t recall wearing this side of the millennium.

“Some of the worst kits are the best loved,” commented Ryan.

“Some of them are an acquired taste. The fans love the Cliftonville Kit Kat kit, we keep selling out of that on the coasters.”

As well as the bespoke printed items, the shop is home to an array of old football programmes and some rare football shirts.

Pete, an Arsenal fan, is particularly proud the shop has recently acquired the club’s yellow and blue ‘bruised banana’ away kit from 1991-93 as well as a ‘Bergkamp 10’ Holland shirt from 1994.

He said: “Bergkamp was the top man for me. It’ll pain me to sell those shirts but that’s how a business works.”

Ryan said: “When I say we get shirts from all over the world I’m not trying to be vague, they genuinely come from all over the world.

“There’s a Linfield top in there I got from Hong Kong. We’ve worked with collectors in Thailand, we’ve got stuff from America.

“We get stuff locally as well, for example we sold a ‘92 Red Star Belgrade top that had belonged to a guy who lived just outside Belfast. It was bought by someone in Miami, Florida. That shirt has done some miles.

“There’s a Rangers match-worn Alex Cleland in there with number two on the back. It came from a collector in Asia.

“We do get requests from people looking for specific shirts. There’s a network of collectors you can put a message out to and see what people have.”

Of the resurgence in the Irish League that has helped boost the sales of memorabilia, Pete said: “We’re finding a lot of people are coming back to Glentoran and there’s been a big cash injection at Larne.

“Some matches are on BBC, some on Sky Sports. You are getting good crowds again, it’s coming back.

“Just last week we sold a the Glentoran home kit from 1985-89 by auction for £140. I reckon it would have cost about £20 to £25 at the time.

“The Irish League is our bread and butter, but we want to branch out into the lower leagues in England and Scotland.

“We’d especially love to get our own club Bangor on board. There’s a big fanbase still there.”

Ryan said: “We’ve spoken to a few Irish League players on Twitter – we’ve got feedback from Joe Gormley and Liam Boyce, they both like their versions on the Cliftonville Subbuteo print.”

Ryan continued: “We don’t come from a retail background, we’re just football fans.

“Initially I was just emailing every address I could find, pitching to them and explaining what I was trying to do. Now we’re speaking to clubs on the phone.

“Obviously George Best put Northern Ireland on the map but recently with us doing well in the Euros people are paying attention outside of here.”

While the online shop is rising in prominence the lads are trying to spread the word that they have a physical shop in Smithfield as well.

“So many people come in to the shop and say they didn’t know we were here,” said Ryan. “Now they’re coming once a month to see what new things we’ve got in. Word of mouth for us is massive, customers telling their friends.

“In most sports shops in Northern Ireland you can only get the most recent kits from the main Premier League, European and Scottish teams. We’re trying to offer something a bit different.”