Clubsport is a specialist sports retailer, not an ‘across-the-board’ sports shop that sells everything that a general sports retailer might (though at one time it was). The shop is a showroom rather than a browsing or ‘passing trade’ establishment. When customers use me it tends to be because I provide a very specialist service, not readily available except online these days.
Clubsport first opened its doors in 1983. Coming from a retailing background and with sport being much of my life, it was perhaps a logical idea to want to open up a sports shop. My first shop was a smallish one in Broughty Ferry, the sea-side suburb of Dundee. It did try to sell ‘everything’ but with my involvement in sport and knowing from personal experience that a proper choice of equipment was often hard to find, specialising is where the emphasis lay. Within three years it grew to become a bigger shop on a prime site in Broughty Ferry and then there was a significant expansion in 1988 when Clubsport ‘came to town’ and opened up a second premises, a 2,000 sq. ft. shop in the Wellgate Centre, at the time Dundee’s main city-centre shopping mall.
During the last few years of the 1980s, the sports retail trade was booming and sports supermarkets were shooting up everywhere. Clubsport found itself having to embrace the sports fashion side of business more and more and it did so with some success. If you remember the infamous shell suits you might remember the time! Clubsport’s ethic on opening in 1983 had been to cater for sports people’s sporting needs rather than the general population’s fashion requirements. I wanted to help sports people find the right kit for their sport, specialising in equipment and not sports fashion.  There was no need for showy premises on prime sites. I found an ideal location on the NW edge of Dundee’s city centre, an 800 sq. ft. showroom with free car parking at the door. That's where I am today with the year 2023 seeing Clubsport’s 40th birthday and 30 years of ‘phase two’ leaving behind the formative 10 years of ‘phase one’.
I’m four shops-in-one really - a cricket shop, a hockey shop, a bowls shop and a club shop. If you come into my showroom between the months of April and August, you’ll be greeted by walls of cricket stock. Come in between September and March and hockey greets you. And 12 months a year there’s bowls and then there's always 'Club stuff' going on. The latter is generally ordered rather than stocked and typically can be embroidered polo shirts for a golf trip, a set of football strips for a Sunday league team or a dozen basketballs for a School recquisition.
I’m in my home town, DUNDEE, Scotland’s 4th city with a population of some 150,000. Dundee lies on Scotland's east coast with a classical cityscape between hill & river & hill. Within Dundee itself I’m quite central, just half a mile north west of the city centre in the Blackness area which sits midway between the westbound Perth Road and the Lochee Road, the main NW artery from the centre of the city.
This Blackness Industrial Area comprises several buildings which were once a hive of activity in the jute trade, an industry that once gave work to over 50,000 Dundonians. The various buildings were converted into workshops, showrooms and offices some 30 years ago and now as many as 60 diverse businesses trade from here. My showroom is in the second biggest building, DOUGLAS COURT, which is adjacent to the biggest one, the 5-story high MEADOW MILL, itself a landmark.