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By William Shaw
Typography & design by
Richard Wolfströme
Exhibition and installation
by Standard 8
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Words William Shaw
Design Richard Wolfströme
Photography Kenny Laurenson
Publishing consultant Adrian Driscoll
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I could have sworn I brought my bag in
Sporting Colours is in the North Laine, an area filled with small business storefronts that raise two fingers at any supposed trend towards homogenisation. 94a Gloucester Road
Alan arrives around 11am. His partner drove him down because he needed to drop off some stock.
Grabbing the keys out of the black backpack he opens up, and drops the bag on the floor just in front of the counter. A mistake.
It takes him just ten seconds to walk back to the car to pick up the box. He’s amazed at what can happen in so short a time.
His new shop Sporting Colours is a labour of love, selling class sports clothing, not your JJB stuff – anything from the Dukla Prague away kit to a perfect copy of Johann Cruyff’s Holland 74 shirt.
He lifts the box of Seagulls Party t-shirts out of the car. Alan is a big supporter of the Albion. Brighton born and bred, he couldn’t not, really. The last couple of years haven’t been so good, but nothing has been as bad as 97, the year Bill Archer sold Goldstone, leaving the Seagulls without a home ground. It’s been six long years since they put in the planning application for a new stadium at Falmer, and it’s still not decided. What a waste of time.
He turns, box in hand. Sporting Colours has now been out of sight for fifteen seconds, max. He notices someone step briefly into the shop, then leave. Inside Alan puts the box down and is about to go and tell his partner, "That’s it. I’m done," when...
I could have sworn I brought my bag in.
He legs it out of the door and looks up and down Gloucester Road. A hundred yards away a slim fellow strides away, a young woman in tow. Alan dashes to look down Kemp Street, Foundry Street, Trafalgar Lane.
Nothing. Too many doorways to duck inside.
Mentally the list of what he’s lost is already starting to fill up. The new laptop... his cheque books... his passport... a whole lot of sales ledgers... all those Small Faces and Who songs he had in iTunes.
A total of 15 seconds; another twenty for him to realise it had been nicked.