SportsPower, great for shopping and a wonderful place to work

Narrabri proudly wears the title of ‘Australia’s Sportiest Town’, so it’s little wonder Longies SportsPower has been a favourite shopping spot and retail success story for nearly 30 years.

Offering a wide variety of products from fishing rods to swimming gear, gym equipment, bikes, running shoes and even jigsaw puzzles, the friendly team at Longies’ has all your sporting and fitness needs covered.

“It’s really an old-fashioned sports store, we’ve got a bit of everything, all the sports and model railroading because I’m heavily into that myself,” said proprietor Tony Longworth.

Our local SportsPower is well-known for providing exceptional customer service and employees pride themselves on having the knowledge and expertise to help customers find the most suitable items in the store’s treasure trove of goods.

However, Longies isn’t just a great place to shop, it’s also been recognised as a wonderful place to work receiving runner-up in the Employer of choice (less than five employees) category, at the recent Narrabri Chamber of Commerce Business Awards.

“It means a heck of a lot to me because it’s a nomination put in by the employees,” said Mr Longworth.

“I’ve been lucky that I’ve had a fairly consistent employee situation and I think that comes from ‘give and take’ on both sides. I’ve got two current employees, aside from my son Brent, who have been with me for more than 10 years, one employee would actually be closer to 15 years.

“I’ve always believed in giving the employee input, so they then feel more responsibility and are more likely to know the ins-and-outs of a product and sell it appropriately to customers.

“One of our traits is – we always greet our customers.

“Customers quite often come into a shop with a specific mindset of what they want, and we may not have it, but we may have something else that we can offer as an alternative that will serve the same purpose. It’s about having product knowledge, and there are a lot of products in here.”

Mr Longworth is a cricket tragic and he’s as sports mad as the rest of Narrabri. His love of sport is what inspired him to purchase a sports store in 1994 and it runs in the family, with Mr Longworth’s son Brent (another keen sportsman) also working in the Maitland Street shop to give his father “more time to spend with his other two passions”, his wife of 52 years, Joan, and model railroading.

Mr Longworth said his upbringing and former life as a farmer in the Burren Junction/Rowena area taught him valuable skills, many he uses in his retail business today.

“I was on the land for 27 years, I learnt the responsibility of business and going through drought, fires, floods and all the rest – it develops one’s character to handle adversity.”

Mr Longworth added that working in his own business with an amazing team was one of his life goals.

“I only had three ambitions when I left school: to be a farmer/grazier, own a sports store and travel the world commentating on sport. So I’ve achieved two out of three, I’m happy with that.”