BOOTIFUL GAME
Two lads from Devon buy retro boots and offer them to the pros... and Aubameyang, Xavi, Morata and Co can’t get enough of them
IT IS known as ‘flipping’. At least it was when teenagers Jake Self and Cam Sangster began selling football boots out of their bedroom and garage just outside Torquay.
‘We were buying used boots and cleaning them ourselves at home, to make them look as brand new as possible,’ Cam explains. ‘We were making £40 a pair minimum... but we were selling maybe two or three a week.’
Not bad for two boys, armed only with nail-varnish remover and a few hundred pounds. The money had been reward for passing their GCSEs, the ‘flipping’ merely a hobby to stop them ‘scavving off’ their parents.
The postman realised what they were doing but three years on, many neighbours are none the wiser. The boxes stack higher now. Their punters come from further afield, too. ‘RareBoots4U’ supply Karim Benzema, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Xavi, Ivan Rakitic, Joao Felix and dozens of other professionals.
Some boots are so hard to find that their value has skyrocketed. Spurs’ Serge Aurier recently paid more than £500 for a pair so exclusive that the teenagers would struggle to source them again.
This is a tale of two friends who stumbled upon a snowball. Now they’re struggling to keep it under control. ‘Where we were in those days and to look at where we are now, I still can’t really believe it,’ Cam says. Nor can some of the biggest boot suppliers, who have new rivals with fresh faces, fresh ideas and plans to grow beyond this corner of South Devon.
IN DECEMBER last year, Cam and Jake were on a train when something caught their eye.
‘It popped up on my phone,’ Cam remembers. ‘ You get Facebook status memories from years ago — it was me posting when I was 10 years old, saying, “I can’t wait to go and watch my idol Jack Wilshere play”. On that day I was going to his house to meet him and supply him boots.’ The West Ham midfielder had been their idol, now he was their customer after a bit of help from Arthur masuaku.
‘When we were standing outside his gates, we were nervous as hell,’ Cam admits. They were in a similar state a day earlier, when they met Alvaro morata — then at Chelsea — at a hotel in London.
It was the first time they had come face to face with a Premier League star. ‘ We were literally shaking,’ Jake remembers. ‘It was like doing our driving test again!’
They are still only 19, but they have come a long way already. Having played football together as kids, their lives changed in may 2016, towards the end of their final year of school. ‘ One day we thought, “We need some money... we love football, we love boots, let’s try to flip a pair”.’
They began scouring eBay. ‘ We knew they’d be high in demand,’ Jake insists. ‘ We would take a photo on my phone against the wall — the box, with the boots on top, and we’d upload that on to Instagram with the size, condition and price,’ Cam adds.
Within a few months, their follower count had spiralled and footballers from League One and Two wanted a piece of the pie.
Their business model was simple. ‘We’d get people to post it on their Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and we just built it up,’ Cam says. ‘ The better the pros, the better the shout- outs, the more followers you’re going to get.’
That worked to a point, and then the match was lit by Chelsea’s Ethan Ampadu.
‘He’s a local lad,’ Jake explains. ‘We kind of know him and asked him, “Do you want a free pair of boots in return for a shout-out?” He led us on to David Luiz, from David Luiz we got Alvaro morata and he’s our main customer now.’
Cam continues: ‘(morata) has put us in contact with so many players. One morning I woke up and Rakitic was messaging me. I was like, “Nah this can’t be real!”’
Soon they took several pairs to the midfielder’s house and he drove them to the Nou Camp for a Barcelona game. Players keep calling because the boots they want can no longer be bought in shops. ‘Nike and adidas can’t even supply their own players with these boots,’ Cam says. ‘That’s why they come to us.’
So what began as a pound-shop garage sale has morphed into a phenomenon. Where they get the boots, they won’t say (‘Top secret’). But why would players pay for old boots when they are paid millions to wear the newest models? Simple. There’s the ‘ plastic- y’ material of modern boots. And then there are the memories.
‘As soon as they see a pair of boots they wore as a kid that they can get brand new again, no one says no,’ Cam says. ‘We knew what we could accomplish. But we never thought it would blow up.’
It has, and now Cam juggles the business with his own football career at Plymouth, while Jake recently went full-time.
Their workload is piling up and they could do with help. But Cam admits: ‘It’s so hard to understand the boot market and unless you’ve grown up with it and have a massive passion for boots, it’d be impossible to work with us.’
Now they hope extra learning will catapult their earnings to another level.
‘For the last year, we’ve taught ourselves business,’ Cam reveals. They have turned to books and podcasts to learn about marketing, time-management and life as a small-business owner.
That’s why they’re not worried about copycats. ‘There are tons out there trying to do the same thing.’ The difference? ‘They don’t want to put the graft in.’
Though most top players have lucrative boot contracts, the allure of nostalgia is too much for some. Take Benzema. According to RareBoots4U, the Frenchman’s contract with adidas means he incurs a fine every time he doesn’t wear the brand’s newest boots in a match. But that didn’t stop him wearing classic F50s for most of last season.
‘ Others won’t wear them in games, they’ll only wear them in training,’ Cam adds. ‘I went to madrid because when we supplied Xavi, we did a deal with his (marketing) agent,’ Cam continues. ‘He used to work for adidas and he was saying adidas know who we are. He said, “They don’t like what you’re doing”.’
They admit they occasionally leave the big names disappointed. ‘Some of the boots they want are like gold dust,’ says Cam.
But the dream is to relocate to London and open a warehouse and store. That would bring footfall and consistent sales. ‘Everyone knows who we are now and we need to be turning that into profits,’ Cam says. ‘We’re making good money but we need to make proper, proper money.’
That shouldn’t be a problem if they can land one of their prime targets, Lionel messi and Cristiano Ronaldo... though Cam admits that may be a step too far.
‘We have asked team-mates like Sami Khedira: Can you talk to Ronaldo?’ Jake reveals. ‘The other day we asked one of PSG’s players to talk to Neymar,’ Cam adds. ‘He spoke to him and (Kylian) mbappe and they said they can’t do it because of Nike but they 100 per cent would... that is annoying.’
Based on the last three years, though, RareBoots4U shouldn’t struggle to find customers. ‘When they see the stuff we post,’ Cam continues, ‘people don’t realise what we do behind the scenes.’
‘It’s not just getting boots and flipping them,’ Jake adds.
Well, not any more at least.