Kieran O’Connor combines his expertise, experience and love of the game in winning venture
Building a solid customer base from its Covid-era beginnings five years ago and occupying a popular Saturday spot at Broadway Market in Hackney, East London, Stanchion is more than just a purveyor of football books.
“We don’t operate on huge numbers,” says Stanchion founder, former Waterstones’ bookseller and Pluto Press publicist Kieran O’Connor. “We try and focus on range – we want to appeal to various niches, interests and teams. We don’t discriminate between big clubs and small, non-league ones. People like football for a multitude of different reasons.”
Similarly, people have different motivations for opening bookstores. For former Leeds University graduate Kieran, Stanchion brings together his interests, experience and expertise. “I wanted to combine my background in bookselling and publishing, using all the contacts I’d made, with my love of the game.”
Forty years on, this modest one-man operation seems to be filling the gap long left by Sportspages, which opened in 1985 off the Charing Cross Road in central London. Riding the huge wave of interest in the global game sparked by the 1990 World Cup and Euro ’96 in the pre-internet days, John Gaustad’s pioneering store became a meeting place for football followers, fans and writers, some of whom would go on to win its prestigious Sports Book Award.
Sportspages folded in the early 2000s as West End rents soared and digital replaced paper. Gaustad’s death in 2016 prompted an outpouring of tributes from figures whose careers had been built on the showcase he provided for their books.
Much like its Gascoigne-era predecessor, Stanchion sources niche football reads from around the world, branching out to stock fanzines, calendars and sundry soccer treasure.
And, much like Sportspages, Stanchion is seeking to become a platform for football publishing as a whole, with in-person appearances, such as the one scheduled on March 25 featuring the acclaimed author and expert on the game in the Arab world, James Montague. His latest work, Engulfed: How Saudi Arabia Bought Sport, and the World, should be a fascinating presentation and discussion at The Volley bar in Old Street.
Kieran also organises large-scale get-togethers where writers, booksellers, illustrators, photographers and publishers can sell their wares and network.
“We try and do as many events as possible,” says Kieran, who in his bookselling days was one of the first to organise an in-store one for Jonathan Wilson’s quarterly, The Blizzard. “While so much now is done online, personal connections are always best.”
After hosting markets at the South London Gallery and Conway Hall in Holborn, Stanchion’s next one will be at Brixton Library during the Women’s Euros in the summer.
Just as Sportspages arrived during the fanzine boom, when authors such as Pete Davies and Nick Hornby were inventing modern football literature and feeding it into the mainstream, so Stanchion was launched at a unique moment in history.
“This time five years ago, I had just been furloughed and had a lot of time on my hands. I started Stanchion in April 2020 when I registered the company and placed my first order. It launched officially in July, and those three months allowed me to build up stock from a small sum of savings, and set up a website and social media. I started building from there.”
But Kieran wasn’t the only one keeping busy: “Loads of people also had time on their hands, plus a little bit of cash to put into a small venture, out of which came a lot of independent publications”.
Kieran had already alerted his previous employers at Pluto Press to the potential benefits of football literature – St Pauli, Another Football is Possible has long been a strong seller at Stanchion – and soon other independent publishers were following suit.
Another classic example is Kit Holden’s tale of Union Berlin, Scheisse! We’re Going Up!: The Unexpected Rise of Berlin’s Rebel Football Club, issued by venerable publishers Duckworth, former home of DH Lawrence and Evelyn Waugh.
With the green light being given to such relatively obscure subject matter, it seems that this post-pandemic era is another golden age for quality football literature.
“There’s some really good stuff out there,” says Kieran. “Fewer blockbuster player biographies. Very niche stuff sells well, South American, post-Soviet and post-Yugoslav. After operating out of my small flat,” says Kieran, “storing stock and dispatching from there, I’ve since had to hire a studio in Tottenham”.
Stanchion’s Saturday outlet in Hackney dates back to October 2021. “Our space is pretty limited at Broadway Market, so we have to be discerning. Half of it is kids’ books – it’s near London Fields, so plenty of kids’ teams pass by. Among the non-book items, we have greetings cards, vintage scarves and Rubik’s cubes, but we don’t stray too far away from publications.”
Ultimately, Stanchion would like to establish its own imprint: “I know publishing and bookshops, inside out, the processes of getting books in, dealing with what terms are required. It would be a dream to have a publishing outlet”.
Stanchion, Broadway Market, Hackney, London E8 4PH. Saturdays 10am-5pm. Next event: James Montague presents Engulfed: How Saudi Arabia Bought Sport, and the World, also with Jonathan Wilson. The Volley, 211 Old Street, London EC1V 9NR. 6.30pm, March 25.
