Football and fashion a match made in heaven
This was way back when one could afford nice clobber and League of Ireland players had money to open shops. Remember that? Ultimately Gamble moved to Hartlepool, where I’d watch for his name beneath Jeff Stelling’s panel of Soccer Saturday pundits on the ticker while former Spurs starlet Fenn migrated north to Dublin. I went back to dressing like a sports journalist.
It’s not unlike the relationship between football and fashion: a little uneasy.
As I was walking through Dublin this week to meet Michael Dickson, I noticed a poster plastered on a wall advertising a one-man show that’s doing the rounds, entitled: Man 1 Bank 0.
The extended tag line explains that this particular comedian cashed one of those fake prize cheques that fall out of magazines — valued at a supposed £10k or something — and the lads in the bank cleared it. Hilarity and tense legal proceedings ensued.
With Dickson, I learn after I step into his new Temple Bar shop, it was a little bit easier.
Casa Rebelde is a small store on Temple Bar’s Crow Street which you’ll notice if you have cause to pass through the area: there’s two massive flags hanging from poles above the doors.
One, which will no doubt end up in Poland this summer, boasts the crest of Irish fans’ group You Boys In Green and the other flutters the distinctive Skull and Crossbones insignia of Hamburg’s left-leaning soccer club St Pauli. It’s like the UCC jersey after a particularly heavy Fitzgibbon Cup celebration weekend.
The two impressive banners sum up what’s inside if you cross the threshold. Irish football and some cool stuff from abroad too.
“We opened, when was it? Dickson, a Glasgow native, living in Ireland for over four years asks himself. “Yeah, the end of July.
“What it was this: I got married in August so any savings was for the wedding and the other job went to a three-day week. So my girlfriend said you’ve been shiteing on about it for long enough, just go for it will you. So I did.”
What he’s put together is a little corner of heaven for the football nerd. Framed images of Paul McGrath in New York and Ray Houghton in Stuttgart sit above the cash register. Silhouettes of Hamburg are hand drawn behind a book shelf heaving under geek-lit football books by the likes of our own Jonathon Wilson and Simon Kuper.
And then there’s the football gear. But first, in these recessionary times, Dickson needed some cash.
“So I went into the AIB, took in two of the [designer label] Copa t-shirts with me cause I thought you go in and say you want to open a football store they’re going to be thinking Henry Street, big crests and all that.
“So I took two of the Copa ones in to show them the style and it’s good quality. I probably went in too low. I only asked for five grand. And that was it... no retail experience. And they said ‘ah you’re alright’, obviously agreeing that there was a market for it in Ireland.
“What can you get in Ireland? Unless it’s a Man United, Liverpool, Celtic jersey that’s it. So they thought there’s enough people interested in having half decent designs... it’s the kind of thing where you could meet your mates in the pub and still meet the girlfriend and get into the club afterwards wearing it,” he adds with a smile.
Who knows if a little venture like this will make money — but when a fan, anyone, gives it a shot, it’s worth a salute. And you get the feeling that the money isn’t the sole motivating factor anyway. Dickson is planning football film nights in a nearby pub for fellow soccer nutters. If you can get to Berlin this June, he’s running two buses to Ireland games — Croatia is sold out.
There’s 15 seats — priced below €50 — to the Italy game... and there’s a bar on board serving cold beer for €2.50.
“The reaction has been really good,” he says with a shrug, “even women coming in saying, you know, finally a men’s shop amongst all this lot. And it’s amazing what sells — the ’74 Holland one, Argentina, Cuba... even that weird Tibet one, the Ghana one!
“I was just into the football and I was constantly saying you cant get this stuff. It’s as simple as that.”
* adrianjrussell@gmail.com Twitter: @adrianrussell
