4 | REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT McPhail Sports T TVirginia Wright Building on family’s proud legacy McPhail & Fisher expanded into sporting goods, equipment and outdoor lifestyle products, and built a reputation as an iconic sports store. “As a kid I’d go up into the attic where they held the stock at 79 to 81 Manchester Street and there would be Daniel Boone possum hats with the tail hanging down like Davey Crocket wore on TV.” Christchurch’s McPhail family is about to open another chapter in their longstanding association with retail and wholesale commerce with a new venture in Middleton. At the same time, they plan to pay tribute to the first family business, McPhail & Fisher, which opened in Manchester Street in 1907. Andrew McPhail is the fourth generation of the McPhail family to combine business with a love of sport and recreation. It began when Alexander McPhail opened that first family-owned Christchurch business nearly 120 years ago, having emigrated from Scotland in 1885. Originally a leather /footwear merchant, McPhail & Fisher expanded into sporting goods, equipment and outdoor lifestyle products, and built a reputation as an iconic sports store, while manufacturing leather and textile goods. It’s to those retail roots that Andrew is about to return when he opens new McPhail & Fisher premises at 1 Birmingham Drive in time for Christmas. The idea grew out of a steady stream of queries the McPhails had been fielding from the public, Andrew says. “They were asking about the history of items like leather jackets and sheepskin coats that had been purchased back in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, so we decided to buy all the McPhail & Fisher-made jackets and casual wear and everything else they made over the years that we could find.” Andrew remembers the shop from his childhood when it was run by his father, Ian McPhail, along with his grandfather, Clem, selling general sporting goods, from specialist fly-fishing equipment to hunting goods and firearms. They brought these goods in wholesale while having 100 machinists working upstairs. “It was a big operation,” says Andrew. “The shop downstairs was shotguns and camping gear, and upstairs they were manufacturing sheepskin products, leather jackets and travelling luggage. “As a kid I’d go up into the attic where they held the stock at 79 to 81 Manchester Street and there would be Daniel Boone possum hats with the tail hanging down like Davey Crocket wore on TV.” It’s memories like those that fuelled the decision to make the new premises part retail, part family museum. Examples of McPhail & Fisher clothing are already on display at the Canterbury Museum and, as part of their wish to offer the sort of shopping experience you can only get through bricks and mortar, the new shop will offer a whole lot more. Also on display will be another strand of the McPhail & Fisher story, which was unknown to the fourth generation of the family until recently. As they trawled globally online for garments made over the years they came across an Ashburton listing on Facebook for a McPhail & Fisher boat made by Cresta Craft, called Seawolf, bought in 1964, sole owner. As they discovered, back in 1963 McPhail & Fisher made a signature range of boats called Seawolf in collaboration with this well-known Christchurch manufacturer, and the boat in Ashburton was the first of its kind. The last wooden boat to be manufactured, Gavin Hyde bought it at the 1964 Canterbury Boat Show and held on to it for 63 years. “He only used it on Lake Camp in Canterbury and it’s done 50 hours. It’s a time capsule, and we’re extremely grateful to him,” says Andrew. It was even more intriguing, given that in between the original McPhail &Fisher closing its doors and the new one about to open, the McPhails have been the distributors and licensing holders for the US Body Glove brand of Watersports products, including boating equipment. They renamed as McPhail Sports in the 1990s, and for 30 years have been distributing Body Glove’s extensive range of products, from lifejackets and wetsuits to water-skis and inflatable SUPS.
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