Lillywhites

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Lillywhite's in Piccadilly Circus

Lillywhites is a sports retailer based at Piccadilly Circus, London, United Kingdom. It is currently a division of Sports World International

[edit] History

In the 19th century, several members of the Lillywhite family were leading cricketers; another, Fred Lillywhite, organised the first overseas tour by an England team to North America in 1859.

The shop has been based at its current location on Piccadilly Circus since 1925, catering to the London market with specialist departments for croquet and real tennis. Lillywhites' policy was to compete on quality products (which were charged at premium prices). Until 2002, Lillywhites also had locations in other major cities in the United Kingdom including Leeds, Newcastle upon Tyne and Nottingham, with the Leeds store being a very large five storey building that opened in 1996 on The Headrow in the former Schofields department store.

Lillywhites in Piccadilly Circus.

[edit] Sports World

In the face of competition from other retailers offering more goods at lower prices, Lillywhites fell into financial difficulty. In 2002 it was sold to Sports World International, the owner of the Sports World retail chain, and some of the former outlying stores were rebranded as Sports World. A number of exceptions to this are the branches at Rotherham Retail Park, Lakeside Shopping Centre in West Thurrock, Essex, Dalton Park, Murton and Clarks Village, Street, Whiteley and The Glades, Bromley.

Lillywhites has changed a lot since under the ownership of Sports World International. Before the change (during the 1990s), Lillywhites' policy was to compete on quality but now discount goods seem to be the agenda and the all Lillywhites branches are essentially now Sports World trading under a different name with the sports catered for limited to the most popular.