Decathlon Crawley, the 28th store opened in the UK by the French company, celebrated their first year anniversary on the 7th of October. Along with the Crawley Borough Council, they also joined the celebration of the re-opening of the Queen’s Square in town centre. Sports activities, giveaways, music and much more… Federico Fraguela Ferro, the store manager of Decathlon Crawley, shared with me his views on the anniversary and the event.

1)How was the first year in the journey of Decathlon Crawley?

It’s been an amazing and exciting year. We put in a lot of work in the first three months, just before the opening – recruiting the team, training them, as well as building the store from scratch. And after that, the first year was great… with ups and downs, but mainly focusing on the team, on learning about Crawley and the local community.

2) What are, in your opinion, the most notable achievements of this year?

I think the achievements of the team were the greatest – having a team that grew throughout the months. I am proud to say that they are really autonomous, sporty people that are willing to help others here in Crawley and I believe that through them, Decathlon has added value to the people by stimulating them to come to the town centre and get them active into sports.

3) What have you done to celebrate this 1 year anniversary?

As we finally had the Square open, we took outside a few tennis tables and basketball hoops, we gave away lots of samples of our nutrition products and we interacted with people, played games with them and basically let them know who we are. Moreover, we celebrated with the team, so we had a really nice dinner together...Yes, we had a great time.

4)The Decathlon anniversary coincided with the opening of the Queen’s Square in town centre. How was it and what was the impact on the citizens taking part in the celebration?

From the first day, Crawley Borough Council was really helpful and we actually had a great relationship with them, as well as with other retail shops in the area. I hope that the citizens enjoyed that day – it was a lovely day full of people, with music and different activities.

5) Finally, what are the next main goals of the Decathlon Crawley team for the next year?

The main one for us is to really participate and interact more with Crawley community. So, moving forward, we really want to keep helping people participate in sport by making it accessible to everyone in Crawley, not just through our innovations of the products and our prices, but also by bringing together communities. We are looking at creating a running club, as well as different other activities such as yoga, table tennis and so on. So ideally, we are aiming to get more people involved into sports.

For more information about the following events organised by Decathlon UK, you can visit their website www.decathlon.co.uk.