I had the pleasure of running Sukan Sports, while my fellow director, Phil Parkes, concentrated on his day jobs. I have just been made aware of this site, and have noticed many mentions of Sukan Sports, and thankfully most of you seem to have favourable memories of us. Should you have any questions I will try and answer them, but cannot guarantee to have perfect recall on everything. Since Sukan Sports closed for good in December 1995, I have not been involved with goalkeeping products so am not aware of the items currently available.
Welcome aboard! Let's start with why Sukan shut down, since you had an avid following. Had you continued on where do you feel the company would be today?
Hello there and welcome on board!! I have a few questions...As Sukan Sports was before my time (as im 21) i was wondering...
Why did they company close down?
Would you ever think about reopening?
Did you's just provide gloves? Or what else?
Thanks
Firstly, welcome to TGB! I think the question I(and Sepp!) would like to ask is: Is there any stock/catalogs etc anywhere out there?
I think all the Sukan fans are clinging to the thought that there may be a chance of getting their hands on some great retro stuff...please excuse the drooling
Hi there, I'd just like to say thanks for the enjoyment you gave me as a young keeper growing up on the other side of the planet in New Zealand. It's great that you've joined us. Be prepared for a fair few questions...many of us old timers are big Sukan Sports fans!
If you don't already know a couple of us are even designing a replica glove that Neville Southall amongst others used to wear (the 223) and I bought from you as a 15 year old a couple of decades ago. A bit desparate I know but we are goalkeeping fanatics
Hope you enjoy your stay and manage to find some of the Sukan memorabilia we are all craving.
Kiwi
Welcome to the site, we will russell up a knighthood soon
I have massively found memories of sukan sports, unfortunately Goalkeeping died for me in 1996 when Bob Wilson's ended, all youth leagues ended at u16 level, and worst of all Sukan dissapeared haha so I became a 90s emo insteadI couldnt believe it when I saw scanned old copies on here.
You stocked so many gloves? do you have any of the original Reusch/Sondicos in mint condition?
Do you have any ideas why Sondico went from dominating the market, to having next to no presence in the U.K now? Did you notice things declinning for them?
Anyways a very belated thanks, some very simple happy memories as a kid, and in my teenage years of Sukan remain today.
Excellent to hear from you Dave.
If there are any old size 9.5/10 in storage, i would gladly offer a reasonable price.
I cannot begin to tell you how excited i was as a kid every August, when the new Sukan Catalogues used to be delivered. I was Practically biting the posties hand off.
It was a very sad day when you closed for business, however i am sure that your excellent company has inspired the likes of Great Save, Just keepers etc, so the legacy goes on.
Thanks for the memories!
Its not where your from, its where your at!
Hi Dave
I'm with Goalie Gloves, if there is any old stock floating about I'd love to get my hands on it !!!
Hi Dave, nice to have you on board; I bought a number of things from you, and used to love getting your catalog in August : why did Sukan stop?
To see the gloves in your adverts,was like going from black&white to colour t.v.
The reason that Sukan Sports was closed was mainly economic. The business had been going for 16 years, and all that time enough profit had been made to give me a reasonable salary, but selling goalkeepers products in 1995 was getting harder and harder. We therefore decided that we would close down rather than take the risk of it not being financially viable. When we started in 1979 there was really nobody else selling latex gloves, so there was not really any competition, but we had to try and persuade goalkeepers to change from their less than £2 cotton Clemence or Bonetti gloves to a £12 latex glove which wouldn't last very long. This we gradually achieved with a lot of help from our suppliers, but then over the years competition arrived with sports retailers stocking some gloves, if nowhere near the choice we did, and other companies selling like us via mail order. By the 1990's the relationships with our suppliers was generally more difficult, as they were different suppliers to those in 1979. For example in 1979 we were getting Reusch gloves by my seeing Gebhard Reusch over in Germany and discussing what we were trying to do, and he was a great help. Then we were buying from Reusch U.K., who again were understanding and we worked well together, but their business was to try ang get every sports shop in the UK to stock Reusch gloves with the result being that the better they did their job the less goalkeepers would need Sukan Sports. We could live with this but then Gilbert Brothers became the UK distributors for Reusch, and this was a very small part of their overall business, so in my opinion less emphasis was given to Reusch. Because we only bought goalkeepers goods from them we were a very small account for them, while other mail order companies did a great deal more business. We always tried to keep a range for 12 months from August 1st to July 31st which meant planning in advance and getting stock in early during that 12 months, knowing that the suppliers would probably sell out and then decide not to get further stocks. For season 1993/94 we placed orders for the Reusch Schmeichel Personal gloves, which was a good seller, and ordered plenty as we guessed that Gilbert's would not order very many themselves, and we wanted to try and ensure that we would have stocks. This glove appeared in our catalogue at £47.99, but then a few months later before Xmas, another mail order company advertised this item in a football magazine for half price. Naturally we lost some sales as they were selling the gloves for a lower price than we had bought ours at. Apparently they had been offered the stock at a clearance price, but we were the largest buyer of this item and had not been offered them. This is now sounding as though I am a bitter old man, but that is not the case, just an example of how circumstances were changing and why we decided it was better to close down as it was uncertain how things would pan out in the future. I stress again all this was just part of normal business but in our circumstances we did not have, or wish to put in, the resources to try and combat it. Over the 16 years we had over 15,000 different goalkeepers as customers, and tried to give the best service we could with over 90% of orders being despatched the same day. I don't know what would have happened if we had continued, but with the example I have given with Reusch I think it would have got worse for us with Pentland buying Reusch, another big business while we worked best dealing with small and enthusiastic companies.
I have just posted a reply as to why we closed down, and at this stage I do not think that reopening is possible or advisable. We tried to supply items that only a goalkeeper would need so especially gloves, goalkeepeers jerseys, padded shorts and trousers. glove bags, caps etc. We were looking to concentrate on goalkeepers so did not go in for shinpads, boots which obviously a goalkeeper needs, but outfield players also need them and therefore in theory they could be easily obtained. Later we added videos and a couple of books again relating to goalkeepers.
I have a full set of catalogues/leaflets etc., and some spares, but at the moment I do not exactly what. There may be a chance of some spare catalogues being available but I will need to check exactly what I have before letting you know. What I can tell you and the others for certain is that I do NOT have any gloves left. When the decision was made to close from the end of the 1994-95 season, the stocks were allowed to run down and most of the stock was sold by the end of 1995. There may be a few items of clothing hidden away, and this again I will have to check before letting any of you know. But I state again NO GLOVES. What I do have however are a lot of posters from uhlsport, reusch, umbro and sondico. The posters are size A2 or larger, again I will check exactly what I have. Thank you for your question.
Dave, as one of the "15,000" goalkeepers who used Sukan Sports, I want to thankyou for your honest and very interesting insight into Sukan Sports.
We sent a lot of goods to exotic places like New Zealand, over the 16 years about 12% of the goods we sold were sent outside the U.K. Many U.K. goalkeepers may have thought how difficult it was to buy good goalkeepers gloves in their local sports shops during the 1980's, but I know they were spoilt compared to goalkeepers in other parts of the world where it was almost impossible. We also often had problems getting supplies in as well and there are many adidas items that we wanted to sell but could not obtain. We did do very well with the Brazil goalkeepers jerseys we got in from Topper Agata, who informed us that we were the first company to ask for them, although they were always being asked for the outfield jerseys. We also tried Sepp Maier shorts and trousers, Erima jerseys, Heinze shorts and trousers, with varying levels of success. The famous yellow glove bag was easily our best selling item, and that was made locally in exotic Reading. We had to work hard to try and get publicity and the veterans out there may recall our first colour leaflet which offered a free glove bag with every order for a pair of Sukan/Reusch 124 gloves. The young lady was very carefully chosen as apart from being a page 3 model (did you have that in New Zealand?), her father was a former Irish international goalkeeper and she kindly agreed to be photographed in her fathers international jersey while wearing the Sukan/Reusch gloves as well. Carol Dwyer's father was Noel Dwyer, and she herself later became Mrs.Frank Worthington. Should you require any information on the Sukan/Reusch 223 glove that you are intending to clone then do ask, although I would assume that you already know more about it than I do. Incidentally Neville Southall and the other professionals who wore that glove were not paid by us, it was either being supplied gloves free of charge or in many cases they bought the gloves like our other customers.