I'm sure that it is in the book and someone knows, but where was Sams sports shop was in Charlton? I vaguely remember seeing something, somewhere about a shop on Floyd Rd where the mural is.
What was it like and what happened to it, if that little shop (thats new bricked up) where the mural is wasn't Sams sports shop, any ideas what it was?
Thanks.
Comments
Looks like they knocked the front of the shop down, anyone old enough to remember when it shut?
I am pretty sure it was still open when I started in 1959. I believe he continued to own it after he left in 1956 and that it closed iaround 1960. He doesn't talk about it in his book.
The shop was definitely still there in the early 1960's, but was closed down around that time. Before seeing the picture, I would have placed the shop a bit to the right. So, not on the end, but between the end and where the Ocean Fish Bar is now, but I'll bow to photographic evidence ... unless Sam moved it next door at some stage. The other explanation, as Off_it says, is that Sam expanded into two side-by-side shops. I do notice from the picture that he seems to have moved into stationery etc, not just sports good.
We've got to have a go at identifying some of the players in that picture.
I'll get the ball rolling with Benny Fenton and Jack Shreeve at the front, and it could be Jimmy Trotter with the tracksuit bottoms.
Where's my old man when you need him?
Billy Kiernan in the white shorts and shirt....Gordon Jago in centre, right at the back (just to the left of Kiernan as you look at the picture)....and I 'think' that's Stuart Leary extreme right at the back.
I actually bought one or two things in the shop, though for the life of me I can't really remember what.
Oh yes.....Eddie Firmani...that's his face between the shoulders of the two near the front.
at the game for a £5 as i walked down floyd road i heard some old boy telling i assume his grandson "last time i was here that was a sports shop"
I wondered what he was going on about at the time, took him a long time to come back to watch us!!!
I seem to remember it being on the end but that another property was built alongside it some years later, can't be sure but will take a longer and more considered look at it tomorrow when I go past.
Wish I had a £ for every time I've walked past that very spot over the years.