KITSACK

The Ultimate in Sports Backpacks

The Kitsack story was inspired by our two young sons, football mad and always getting into muddy mischief. Lots of parents will understand exactly what we mean, very little of the mud ever seemed to stay on the football pitch or in the garden and way too much found its way into places it wasn’t really wanted!

Whenever our young boys were heading off to school, or going to meet their friends, you could guarantee that, 9 times out of 10, a football went with them. But there always seemed to be an inconvenient problem, a full-size football is quite a difficult thing to carry, particularly for a young person. Sometimes the ball was tucked under their arm, often swinging in an old carrier bag, occasionally (and worryingly) being kicked along the path in front of them with all the dangers that could bring! And when they headed off on their bikes, still struggling to manage their beloved football dangling in a bag from the handlebars, the potential for accidents was too much for us to bear!

We needed a sensible, practical solution that allowed our young ones to indulge their passion for football, kept them safe and, as a bonus to us parents, helped us manage the mud situation. Over a period of months, with many prototypes and much field testing by our eager children and their friends, we created Kitsack.

Kitsack evolved into a really tough, strong, practical backpack that was sized for children and young adults and which had, as its key unique feature, a special external pocket that would safely and securely hold a full-size football. Addressing the safety worries was key, but we also wanted to tackle the other problem. Well not a problem for our kids, but definitely a problem for us parents, unwanted dirt and mud! Far too much of it seemed to find its way onto schoolbooks and clean clothes, usually because the muddy football boots or trainers had been stuffed into their school bag and left to mix nicely with whatever else happened to be in there.

So, we further designed Kitsack to incorporate a special compartment in the base of the bag specially for boots, trainers and other wet or muddy items. It needed to be water-resistant, easy to clean and had to have its own separate access. This left the main big compartment in the Kitsack free for clean things, whether that be schoolwork, sports kit, or a change of clean clothes for after football practice.

The final evolution of the Kitsack gave us the separation we needed, with the muddy ball and boots having their own special places and with lots of useable, practical ‘clean’ space. The feedback we received from our young testers, parents, teachers and football coaches also allowed us to fine tune the Kitsack and add lots of other incredibly useful and valuable features.