Jack Sharp Sports

[Bootle Buck]

I remember as a kid eagerly waiting to go to town to see the new kits and boots in Jack Sharp's. Most of the time looking at them was as good as it got. I remember getting an England kit circa 1972 and didn't take it off for weeks. I will always remember my first stylo matchmaker boots with the laces on the side and who could ever forget the old Alan Ball swivel boots. It was one of those places as an adult you wouldn't think twice about but as a kid it was as good as any toy store.

 

I have been in the States for so long that I had forgotten to look the last few times I have been home to see if it was still there. I'm sure it's probably gone but I'll always have the memories.

[R A Softlad]

It's all JJB these days mate but I believe they still use it as a trade name.

[Ed the Wool]

long gone from whitechapel

 

Is that the one just by paradise st?

 

I miss 'proper' sports shops, where you could buy dubbin and linseed oil for your bat and football studs loose. Rather than the latest chav gear for wearing while you get your asbo.

[fyds]

Used to be the only place you could get any decent sports kit of any kind.

[Nebraska Red]

Used to be the only place you could get any decent sports kit of any kind.

 

nahhhhhh, all the good stauff was at TJ's, Blacklers or on Great Homer Street on a Saturday.

[Bootle Buck]

Yes but Jack Sharp's was like going to the Grotto for me. Looking at the new boots and kits would make your eyes boggle. Of course this was long before replica shirts were a so popular. You were lucky to get a kit for Xmas or your birthday. I remember I always wanted one of those old cotton Umbro tracksuits Liverpool used to wear. But the feckers never ever got one in. I saved my milk and paper delivery money for a year for that. I just loved the smell of that old shop.

 

Those were the days.

[smithdown]

Got a boss Argentina shirt in '82 from there. Loved that shop, with all the weird looking pub team kits - mad orange and yellow stripes and that.

[RP]

Traditional sports shops are the b*llocks.

 

Whilst they survive (there's one very close to me and another about 20 minutes drive away), I'd rather eat my own sh*** than go into a JJB/JD.

[Nebraska Red]

Yes but Jack Sharp's was like going to the Grotto for me. Looking at the new boots and kits would make your eyes boggle. Of course this was long before replica shirts were a so popular. You were lucky to get a kit for Xmas or your birthday. I remember I always wanted one of those old cotton Umbro tracksuits Liverpool used to wear. But the feckers never ever got one in. I saved my milk and paper delivery money for a year for that. I just loved the smell of that old shop.

 

Those were the days.

 

they certainly were.

 

money was tight in our house when I was growing up. we always had what we needed, but there was not much for extras.

 

if I wanted anything fancy, I paid for it myself by working 2 or 3 different jobs as a kid.

 

gola footy boots were the ones I wanted and Jack Sharps was the place to get them.

 

i can still remember buying myself a cricket bat when i got in the school team. all the posh kids from Formby and Southport had them, so i had to be the same. the best part of it was getting a proper bag for the bat and my other cricket gear, and, I still have the bat , gloves, pads and the bag.

[Bootle Buck]

If I not mistaken weren't they the "Official Subbuteo headquarters".

 

Now there was another CLASSIC.

Edited September 21, 2006 by Bootle Buck

[Guest Kev]

If I not mistaken weren't they the "Official Subbuteo headquarters".

 

Now there was another CLASSIC.

 

I've just turned into a kid again

[Nebraska Red]

we had tons of the stuff.

 

my dad got us an old mini snooker table, covered up the pockets and marked out a pitch for us.

 

the baize eventaully wore through with so much use.

 

we used to have loads of kids over when the weather was too bad to play footy on the Cenny.

 

i think most of it is still up in my mum's loft.

 

imagine today's kids playing subbuteo? they would spend most of their time looking for somewhere to stick a battery.

[L19red]

Is that the one just by paradise st?

 

I miss 'proper' sports shops, where you could buy dubbin and linseed oil for your bat and football studs loose. Rather than the latest chav gear for wearing while you get your asbo.

yes paradise street runs into whitechapel. Rushworths used to be there as well another place I loved going as a kid.

[Bootle Buck]

we had tons of the stuff.

 

my dad got us an old mini snooker table, covered up the pockets and marked out a pitch for us.

 

the baize eventaully wore through with so much use.

 

we used to have loads of kids over when the weather was too bad to play footy on the Cenny.

 

i think most of it is still up in my mum's loft.

 

imagine today's kids playing subbuteo? they would spend most of their time looking for somewhere to stick a battery.

 

I still think this was the greatest Liverpool team ever.

 

[fyds]

nahhhhhh, all the good stauff was at TJ's, Blacklers or on Great Homer Street on a Saturday.

Blacklers was ok for dunlop pumps but Great Homer Street Market stuff? 'here son, I bought you a footy top from Great Homer Street - yer Mum and me have got a bet on as to what point in yer first game it falls apart'!

 

Nah - Jack Sharp's was the biz in its day.

 

yes paradise street runs into whitechapel. Rushworths used to be there as well another place I loved going as a kid.

Kinell - dubbin and single studs - that takes me back. I can still remember buying records at NEMS...and what were those two guitar shops just over the road? The one were if you looked skintish and asked to try a fender the owner would say 'No - now f*ck off!' It's amazing the c*nt sold anything.

[Bootle Buck]

Blacklers was ok for dunlop pumps but Great Homer Street Market stuff? 'here son, I bought you a footy top from Great Homer Street - yer Mum and me have got a bet on as to what point in yer first game it falls apart'!

 

Nah - Jack Sharp's was the biz in its day.

Kinell - dubbin and single studs - that takes me back. I can still remember buying records at NEMS...and what were those two guitar shops just over the road? The one were if you looked skintish and asked to try a fender the owner would say 'No - now f*ck off!' It's amazing the c*nt sold anything.

 

 

I remember that guitar shop there was a Hair Stylist next door with the wierdest looking feckers working there. I think Flock of Seagulls got their hairstyle ideas there.

Edited September 22, 2006 by Bootle Buck

[fyds]

Frank Hessy's! That was the guitar shop - bought my first Rickenbacker 325 there! God he was a horrible man.

 

I probably remember that very hairdressers a few years before you mate - I think it was called 'Val's' - I had my hair cut there once in the early sixties, sitting on a plank across the chairs and all done with electric clippers and horrible brylcreem. I remember my Mum took me for lunch at the caff in George henry Lee's to make up for the horrible job they did, as I must have looked like someone who was about to have brain surgery.

 

Funny thing - when I think about that end of town - it's always from that era, lovely old sandstone buildings black with smog, frosty foggy november mornings, Exchange Street station still full of steam trains and the fat guy who ran Freeman Hardy Willis telling you to 'piss off somewhere else' if you stood in the doorway when it rained.

 

Just one of those things were you again realise (like those terrific photos of sixties Liverpool someone posted a while back) how much everything - and I mean everything - has changed.

[Nebraska Red]

Frank Hessy's! That was the guitar shop - bought my first Rickenbacker 325 there! God he was a horrible man.

 

I probably remember that very hairdressers a few years before you mate - I think it was called 'Val's' - I had my hair cut there once in the early sixties, sitting on a plank across the chairs and all done with electric clippers and horrible brylcreem. I remember my Mum took me for lunch at the caff in George henry Lee's to make up for the horrible job they did, as I must have looked like someone who was about to have brain surgery.

 

Funny thing - when I think about that end of town - it's always from that era, lovely old sandstone buildings black with smog, frosty foggy november mornings, Exchange Street station still full of steam trains and the fat guy who ran Freeman Hardy Willis telling you to 'piss off somewhere else' if you stood in the doorway when it rained.

 

Just one of those things were you again realise (like those terrific photos of sixties Liverpool someone posted a while back) how much everything - and I mean everything - has changed.

 

 

STEAM TRAINS!!! you must be really, really old.

[Bootle Buck]

Frank Hessy's! That was the guitar shop - bought my first Rickenbacker 325 there! God he was a horrible man.

 

I probably remember that very hairdressers a few years before you mate - I think it was called 'Val's' - I had my hair cut there once in the early sixties, sitting on a plank across the chairs and all done with electric clippers and horrible brylcreem. I remember my Mum took me for lunch at the caff in George henry Lee's to make up for the horrible job they did, as I must have looked like someone who was about to have brain surgery.

 

Funny thing - when I think about that end of town - it's always from that era, lovely old sandstone buildings black with smog, frosty foggy november mornings, Exchange Street station still full of steam trains and the fat guy who ran Freeman Hardy Willis telling you to 'piss off somewhere else' if you stood in the doorway when it rained.

 

Just one of those things were you again realise (like those terrific photos of sixties Liverpool someone posted a while back) how much everything - and I mean everything - has changed.

 

As a young kid in 60's I never appreciated the fact that Liverpool was in it's heyday. I remember walking along whitechapel and going into NEMS with my older brother. With Beatles and the other Merseybeat bands music playing all over the place. I even remember him taking me past the Cavern at lunchtime and seeing the office girls going in for a quick dance and a bevvy. Going into Town back then was a big event, I couldn't wait to get off the bus at the Haymarket and make my way to the City center. I seemed like such a day out.

 

I remember going shopping on a Saturday and seeing all the away fans and OOT's walking around town. For those fans who hadn't gone to an away game you would seem them with their little transisiter radios(or not so little back then) up to their ears.

 

What a great era, wish I had appreciated it more at the time.

[fyds]

As a young kid in 60's I never appreciated the fact that Liverpool was in it's heyday. I remember walking along whitechapel and going into NEMS with my older brother. With Beatles and the other Merseybeat bands music playing all over the place. I even remember him taking me past the Cavern at lunchtime and seeing the office girls going in for a quick dance and a bevvy. Going into Town back then was a big event, I couldn't wait to get off the bus at the Haymarket and make my way to the City center. I seemed like such a day out.

 

I remember going shopping on a Saturday and seeing all the away fans and OOT's walking around town. For those fans who hadn't gone to an away game you would seem them with their little transisiter radios(or not so little back then) up to their ears.

 

What a great era, wish I had appreciated it more at the time.

Ah, it's easy to get lost in that nostalgia and we often forget the food was shat, housing was shat, pay was shat - in fact most things were and Liverpool had one of the highest childhood mortality rates in western Europe at the time, mostly TB and Polio.

 

Still - my memory is almost a carbon copy of yours - would get off the bus at the Empire, London Road (for T.J. Hughes' or Castle Street though - even sometimes the Pier head just to watch the boats come and go. Ceiling at NEMS that Brian Epstein and Peter Brown covered with 45's and LP's was discovered to be stioll there just a decade ago when Rumbelows moved out and they took down the false ceiling. I still remeber looking at in it's heyday and listening to thos terrible headphones in Liverpools first store (NEMS again) to have listening booths so you could hear before you buy - lways meant the store was heaving - clever that.

 

That was the era of my first regular spot at Anfield which I used until it went all seater, to the left of the goal looking out from the kop, three rows back from the front about halfway toward the corner flag. That anfield and the current one have absolutely nothing left in common - not one of those stands remains in shape or form, which makes Andy's 'I don't wannna move this is our traditional home' all the more silly to me.

 

STEAM TRAINS!!! you must be really, really old.

They were still running in Liverpool at least in part until the middle of 1966. They used a lot in the winter of 62-63 when we had the worst winter on record as they had no designs of snow plough for the diesels.

 

But yes...I'm getting a bit long in the crown...