Scottish footwear guru provides VIP healing for bodies and soles

“When we were about 14 a bunch of us would deliver the FT and Economist to banks and businesses around the city centre in Glasgow. We’d be in at 4.30am and the guy in the shop would cook us breakfast and give us stationery for school. 

“I remember sitting using the pens he gave us, drawing a pair of Adidas ZX600, trying to get the colours right. I was fanatical about them.”

What Lynn’s schoolteachers couldn’t know when they were scolding him in the late 1980s is that the 14 year old was manifesting a career that would see him go on to launch a business idea with an impressive global reach.

In 2016, after decades working in retail for other people, he teamed up with pal Rob Stewart to launch Sneakers ER, a resuscitation service for flatlining sannies.

The pair met on the online trainer forum Crooked Tongues, bonding over their shared love of sports footwear, and spotted a gap in the market.

“We first started talking about setting up the business in 2013,” said Lynn. “We had a love for sneakers, we had both accumulated thousands of them. But I’d always wondered why you could take a jacket to get repaired, or a pair of shoes, but not sneakers. Even cobblers wouldn’t go anywhere near them.

“I had shoes that were 10, 20, 30 years old but with no really good way of looking after them. I worked in a shop in Glasgow and Rob was a 3D model maker, so we got together, put £500 each in and decided to do it ourselves.”

That initial investment allowed them to research and formulate a PH-neutral cleaner, which they had produced in Glasgow and started selling via Instagram.
It was the first step in what is today an international brand with an annual turnover of £1 million.

“As soon as we launched it, it started doing well,” said Lynn, talking to Business HQ from the company’s flagship store in Glasgow’s Trongate. 

“It was word of mouth at first. But within a year or so, we were in America in the boardroom at Adidas, who wanted us to work with them. They had researched products like ours from around the world and felt ours was the best.

“We were so nervous, right out of our depth in this boardroom environment. But we ended up totally bossing this meeting. They asked us if we were a big enough company to do what they needed and we lied and said yes.

“We were operating out of a little factory in Bridgeton and we let on we were much bigger than we were. In the end we had 66 pallets of our product being shipped to Vietnam. 

“Me and Rob had to ask pals to come and work through the night to help us.”

The collaboration with the iconic German label was an early ratification of the pair’s vision and the appeal of their product in a world where consumer ethics were seeing a trend developing towards reducing, reusing and recycling.

Last month they launched one of several in-store product partnerships with New Balance in the brand’s Edinburgh shop. There are Sneakers ER agents working in the Middle East and partnering with END clothing label across their European stores.

Sneakers ER refurbishes 300 pairs a week, employing a staff of 20, and also buy trainers with potential for a second life. Prestige department store Selfridges has two Sneakers ER outlets in their London and Manchester branches, with plans for another in Birmingham.

Lynn said: “They asked us instore in 2019 and we said no. It sounds crazy but we didn’t think we were ready for it. They kept coming back to us, so we did a pop up in 2020 for what was supposed to be two weeks, then it extended to four weeks.

“They asked us after that to pick a space. They tricked us into coming in with a pop up and then asked us to stay after that. They’ve been amazing and very loyal to us. 

“They were one of the retailers who were on to sustainability early. Brands like them realise people want shoes for longer now. The whole world has changed. 

“There was a certain time when people were freaky about putting on a second-hand jacket. But walk down the high street and there are vintage stores everywhere. 

“It’s now cooler to buy second-hand than it is to buy new. If you spent £300-£400 on a pair of shoes why not look after them and keep them for a lot longer?

“Sneakers ER in London honestly couldn’t be any busier. People come from other countries and regularly bring a suitcase of their family’s sneakers with them. That happens regularly. At the Langholm Hotel and Conduit Hotel in London, the doormen offer a service where they bring guests’ sneakers to Selfridges to get them done up.

“Remember there was a time when you couldn’t get into places like Harrods with a pair of sneakers on. That’s all changed now.”

For all that, theirs is a Glasgow success story. Its identity has its roots in American pop culture that came across the Atlantic at a formative time for Lynn. There’s a reason why his business is called Sneakers ER, and not Trainers A&E, and it’s all down to a 1980s John Hughes film.

“I remember watching The Breakfast Club and Anthony Michael Hal was wearing a pair of blue and yellow Nike Internationalists on the poster and album cover,” he said. 

“That was it for me. These sneakers were the absolute grail. The only shop in Glasgow that sold them was Roberts Stores, across from where we are now, and I remember going in past their pictures of Paul McStay and Gary Lineker down to all the Nike runners. I was 14 and they were rare and hard to find.”

Since those heady days, Lynn and business partner Wilson have built up personal collections of gutties numbering thousands, devoting entire rooms in their homes to their insured hauls.

And while the average punter at Sneakers ER doesn’t have that luxury, they understand the affection people hold for the brands on their feet.

“I always look at people’s shoes before I look at anything else,” said Lynn. “We are passionate about what we do. People ask us if we’d sell, but I’m not interested. We love going into work everyday, talking about trainers, everything about it. 

“If me and Rob were to go on Dragon’s Den tomorrow we wouldn’t have a clue what to do. We’re just two guys who love trainers.”