Brought up on the Wirral, across the River Mersey from Liverpool, both Tom and Phil were were both very good at football. Tom played youth football for local club Tranmere Rovers from the age of eight, while Phil spent time in the schoolboy sides at both Liverpool and Man City.
Phil eventually switched to cricket, and went on to play a number of games as a semi-professional for Lancashire. Meanwhile, Tom stuck to football, and played professionally for Tranmere from the age of 17 to 21, before spending time at Spanish side Jerez.
However, both brothers ultimately decided to end their sporting careers when they realised that they’d never be able to reach the very top. Instead they switched to a new dream – setting up a sportswear business. Realising that they’d need to to build up some savings to try to do this, in 2013 they both moved to London, and got well-paid finance jobs in the City.
They’d then spend their days at their desks, and evenings doing on-the-ground market research, standing outside high-end gyms in the capital. The brothers would ask people going in and out what they wanted from their sportswear. Armed with this knowledge and their wider research, two years later they were confident enough to start cold-calling potential suppliers in southern Europe.
Initial prototypes were then tested on friends, and in addition to the Virgin money a number of private investors came on board, including Tom Singh, the founder of UK fashion store chain New Look. Castore then launched online in 2016.
