In 2026, the high street has been searching for a reason to feel essential again. It doesn't need to feel louder or even bigger per se, just something more, well, meaningful.
After years of efficiency-first retail and transactional spaces, what’s been missing is somewhere that gives people like you and I a reason to stay. Which is why Pro:Direct's new PD:FC store inside Manchester’s Arndale – which officially opened last week – feels less like another shop launch, and more like exactly what physical retail has been waiting for: a space designed not just for buying, but for belonging.
PD:FC – which stands for Pro Direct Football Club – isn’t about replicating its revered online store with four walls, but about translating football culture into something spatial. Step inside and contrary to the usual feeling you get when you walk into a store these days, it doesn’t feel transactional, it feels curated and considered.
It's a 360 environment, too. By which I mean that you could well head to PD:FC for a pair of boots and somehow find yourself leaving with a new technical GORE-TEX shell jacket, or another piece of apparel that makes sense both pitch-side and post-pint. The space acknowledges what modern football culture actually looks like: layered, stylistically aware, and fluid between sport and street.
What makes the space feel genuinely progressive, too, is the atmosphere. This isn’t a grab-and-go retail sprint. It borrows more from contemporary running stores, the kind that double as community hubs. It’s a space to linger, talk and compare. Try on different options without feeling hurried. A place to meet before five-a-side or decompress after it.
Manchester is the right city for it too. Few places understand football as deeply woven civic fabric – not just 90 minutes, but identity, music and fashion. PD:FC fits into that rhythm. You can debate soleplates and silhouettes with equal seriousness, and nobody blinks.
Retail has optimised itself into invisibility over the last decade, but football has always been physical. It's proximity, noise and a shared experience. Sure, watching on your phone works; being in the room is better. And buying online has its place; yet feeling the weight of the boot, the cut of the jacket, in a space that understands why it matters – that’s different.
It’s important to understand that PD:FC isn't rejecting e-commerce (I mean, Pro:Direct made its name online), but complementing it. Think of the store as a physical edit of that endless scroll, but the best bits, properly framed. And, honestly, during a time when almost everything arrives at the tap of a screen, this approach feels quietly radical and most certainly needed.
Visit PD:FC at Upper Mall, Manchester Arndale, Manchester, M4 3AQ
