An Interview with Hidden Football Club
Hidden Football Club is a football collective/shop that's launching this year to serve Canadian lovers of the beautiful game with footy culture items like art, prints, fashionable clothing and unique footy content. I stumbled upon Hidden Football Club on Instagram and instantly I could sense something special. A big thanks to Hidden Football Club Founder Evan for doing a quick Q&A.
Image Courtesy: Hidden Football Club.
Q: Tell us a little bit about your organization and how it got started.
R: The Hidden Football club is only just in its beginning stage with several mainstream brands jumping on board already to give us an exciting lineup of clothing,jerseys, prints, and magazines! The Hidden Football Club really was a result of my past experiences of Football culture while living in England. Seeing how much more is available and created for European fans, I felt there was a logical fit with the very diverse Canadian market. When you play on any given day in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal or elsewhere, you really get a feel for the diversity of our people, and it's something that we should complement and embrace, which is our goal!
Q: From your website, it looks like you're primarily catering to the culture element of footy. How do you plan to engage the football community (through arts, clothing, magazines) in Toronto (and beyond)?
R: There are plenty of opportunities to buy soccer equipment in Canada at large sporting retailers, but seldom do you see what I call football culture items (items created for football fans from creators across the globe). As we've found out, many of these brands struggle to ship individual orders into Canada. We hope to be the hub that solves this by hosting exciting pop-up shops, attending football events like some of the ones hosted by the Toronto Soccer Connection, and create a buyer-friendly store with a wide range of options and price points!
Q: What parts of the beautiful game have you seen grow the most in Canada in recent years? What other areas are you hoping to see blossom?
R: I think in particular there has been a great growth and spike in interest in the women's side of the game due to our success and hosting the Women's World Cup in 2015. This in combination with other major soccer tournaments and the recent success of Toronto FC have brought the diverse group of football lovers out of the woodworks to congregate in bars, living rooms and in street events. This growing interest has led to a shakeup of our development system with League1 and now the Canadian Premier League Forming.
We hope that this growing interest in the game will result in a new wave of parents signing up their young children for footba... soccer!
Q: I know you're just getting started, but where do you see the Hidden Football Club brand in 3 years?
R: With soccer in Canada beginning its incline, we want to be a large part of a football culture growing in Canada. Evolving from just an online store and series of pop-up shops, we hope to bring the actual game into the mix with tournaments featuring music, art, fashion and most importantly-football!
Be sure to follow Hidden Football Club on Facebook & Instagram.
