p10,12 Trade talk OCT 9/19/08 11:25 AM Page 10
TRADE TALK - Sports Retail
SGB
www.sgb-sports.comSports and Outdoor
Jack meets…
a man on the run
There may be an energy crisis. All around there may be an air of uncertainty.
This month Jack Lynes ran in to the first independent shop to be devoted entirely to Asics and found
PHIL TALBOT with a sound mind and a sound body in charge. A unique situation that poses many
questions and is surely the ultimate in specialisation.
O
ne might have expected that with the melody of mere six months old, and they came to live in North
medals still ringing in our ears and the Harrow, very close to the present shop. He took to canoe
anticipation of four years leading up to our very slalom at school where he was a useful ‘paddler’ and went
own Olympic Games, anyone who is a specialist through to the top division. He loved mountaineering
in the sports trade would be excited if not ecstatic right from the age of eleven and started running in order to get
now. Well, Phil Talbot is obviously not as laid back as first properly fit for the 4000 metre peaks with rock and ice to
impressions might lead one to believe, but he was most boot (literally), no mean feat, or as I would suggest, no
objective when we broached the subject of the Olympics, mean feet either. But Phil is not one to do anything by half
recalling that most of ‘our’ medals were won in a sitting measures and having decided to run, participated in the
position, and that although the 2012 games would second London Marathon, making it round in three and a
doubtless bring sports to the fore, the masses were half hours, and in his third attempt in just twelve seconds
unlikely to spend either more time or more money on short of three hours. Keen to get to work, he did not
their gear because of it. persevere with ‘A’ Levels though, and was fascinated by
‘ASICS from Runnersworld’, to give it its full title, is computers. His first job was with the British Waterways
quite a modest-sized shop in a very modest shopping Board where he worked on canal systems. The
street in Rayners Lane, Pinner, Middlesex. If the usual extraordinary comparison with that first computer with
advice about where to have a shop , “Location, Location, very little power and being the size of a quite large room is
Location” is correct, this one is certainly in the wrong astounding. It had to be kept at an even temperature and
place. I am reminded of the original Moss Bros shop in dust free, and handled with the greatest care. After seven
Covent Garden (when it was a market and certainly not a years he moved to Lloyds Bank International in Queen
retail area) and its success, attributed to having stock that Victoria Street helping to run their computer systems
was wanted and the notion that if one ‘builds a better which despite being a little smaller and a little more
mousetrap, people will beat a path to your door’ and and the Asics shop – which has been open just a year – powerful were still museum pieces compared with their
although I want primarily to write about Phil and the presents a very different spectacle. The old shop was modern counterpart.
shop in Rayners Lane, I was fascinated to see that crowded, something of a muddle, had a look of neglect
Runnersworld, the parent company, do actually have a (yes, I speak as I find it!) and the occasional fly in the As a member of Hillingdon Athletics Club he organised
branch in Long Acre, Covent Garden. Well, there were no window was not unknown. Contrast that to the shop the famous five-mile road races, and claims that they
mouse traps in Rayners Lane, but despite Harrow’s today. It is clean (not clinical), inviting, with footwear well produced the fastest runners in the country. But there was
horrendous parking charges, customers are coming. displayed, and there is space. Even more important, there more than simply running fast for Phil at Hillingdon. It
I do not know if the local traders do have any is an immediate feeling of being somewhere that is ‘at was thanks to running that he was to catch up with and
organisation as such, but collectively and individually, your service’ , that cares. eventually marry Sharon, no mean sprinter herself. They
banks, stores, jeweller, grocers, bakers, cafes, charity shop, But who is this Phil Talbot? met while training and have been running along well
and even the Asics shop, should be making the strongest together ever since. Coincidentally, Phil’s Dad, John, now
of protests at the obscene parking meter prices if potential He was born in Zambia, at the time it was still North in his 88th year, actually played table tennis at the
customers are not to be driving away. The original Rhodesia. It was a quirk of political fate that led to his Vagabond TT Club in Pinner alongside Sharon before
Runnersworld shop here closed down about two years ago family having to get out with great haste, when he was a Phil and Pat had run into each other. As well as looking
10 SEPTEMBER 2008
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