But I wasn’t looking for a selfie or an autograph. Instead, the 13-year-old was there to hand over his business cards.
Now 16, the London-based businessman is an obsessed confessor sneaker and decided from an early age that he wanted to combine his two passions: coaching and football.
And he has made a great deal of his passion.
In the last three years, it has become one of the leading suppliers of sportswear and star football shoes from all over Europe, as it has purchased exclusive items and then sold them for profit.
While most of the kids ’biggest concern is perhaps what video game they want to buy, Gissing was busy starting his business.
“I realized I could do it by reselling coaches. So what I started doing was queuing up outside the London sneaker stores and buying shoes and turning them around for £ 20, £ 50 above.
“I’d be queuing for hours out, waiting for Yeezys, Jordans, whatever the new high version was, and I’m launching it on eBay and Depop, one of those little interfaces where the reseller meets the reseller.”
“Good sneakers, boy”
These hours that Gissing spent waiting in the queue for news and establishing new contacts bore fruit thanks to a chance encounter with American tennis star Jack Sock at the Queen’s Club, which organizes a warm-up event in Wimbledon in west London.
After asking Sock for a photo, the former world number 8 noticed that Gissing was wearing some weird shoes. “Good shoes, boy,” he told the teenager.
“I just said, ‘I can get you a pair,'” he recalls. “I knew I could get you the pairs I was wearing.”
“He placed the order because I think it was three or four pairs of very rare white Nike trainers,” he says. “I went to his house where he was staying before Wimbledon (he actually won the Wimbledon doubles that year) and handed him the shoes.”
Now, Gissing’s business was already up and running.
“I was very happy and that’s when I started the Instagram‘ Plug Leon ’because he wanted to call me on Instagram,” the 16-year-old says.
“A kind of joke”
Despite handing out numerous business cards to different players, the football industry initially proved that it was harder to break.
In the end, “the spark that ignited the fire,” as Gissing describes it, was a post on Snapchat by another of his clients that caught the attention of Arsenal player Reiss Nelson, who in at that time he was on loan at Bundesliga club Hoffenheim.
“He added me to Snapchat and I thought it was a joke,” Gissing laughs. “He was telling me,‘ Okay, it’s a fake account you added to me. What the hell? “Reiss Nelson, a very good young player, there is no way.
“I send him a message anyway (you have to try it on) and I said,‘ Look, if you’re ever in London and you need a pair of trainers or some new clothes, hit me and I can sort you out. Right now, I’m thinking, “Okay, maybe it’s Reiss Nelson.”
Two months later, Nelson returned to London and wanted two pairs of infrequent coaches to be handed over on his return.
Gissing obtained the sneakers and waited for them at Nelson’s house on his arrival at the airport.
“I was very happy and that was essentially what I needed to start the business and make things work, at least in the world of football, because from Reiss I got Joe [Willock], Bukayo [Saka] and Emile [Smith Rowe]”, Explains Gissing.
“All these young kids who play in academy, are part of the first team, can participate in cup games or be loaned out, to become the superstars they are today.
“So through Reiss’s word of mouth, I basically started to develop a customer base in the world of football and then one thing led to another and things really started to snow.”
The entrepreneur now has Reece James of Chelsea, Mason Greenwood of Manchester United – who Gissing says could be the biggest “shoe head” in the lot – and Arsenal striker Gabriel Martinelli among his clients in the UK , as well as stars such as Barcelona striker Ansu Fati, Juventus midfielder Weston McKennie and Paris Saint-Germain defender Thilo Kehrer across Europe.
While growing his business, Gissing also had to balance school studies.
Getting training was always something he has decided to do well and, earlier this month, he discovered that he had passed his GCSEs with good marks.
“I’m making sure I spend the right amount of time in school and I also focus on my business and keep it growing,” he says.
“It’s obviously a little difficult, but having employees helps and, as you know, I’ve learned to be able to do multiple tasks and manage both things and keep both things running and work hard.”