Simon Jordan - Early Life

Early Life

At 16, Jordan joined Palace and then Chelsea on schoolboy forms, but his career never took off, and Chelsea released him when he was sixteen. He has described himself as being "good enough to be a professional, but mentally I wasn't interested. You often get players who have bags of talent, but not the required application. I was one of them.". All this happened whilst he was at Purley High School for Boys in Old Coulsdon. His father Peter Jordan used to play for Crystal Palace F.C., although never appeared for the first team.

In the late 1980s or early 1990s he was invited by a friend, James Wright, to join him in his business, Wright Connections, selling mobiles via adverts placed in the Loot and Exchange and Mart. Jordan and Wright rented an office from Delta 5, another mobile phone dealer, and the business lasted for a short time before changing its name to Corporate Cellular Ltd (CCL). This business was not considered to be a great success either and Jordan left in the early 1990s, presumably to work for the Carphone Warehouse.

In 1994, Jordan and Andrew Briggs set up their own mobile phone retail company called the Pocket Phone Shop. They started with £30,000 and a 3,500 sq ft (330 m2) unit in Slough, and after forming an agreement with service provider Astec, the business flourished.

By 2000, the Pocket Phone Shop had 167 outlets nationwide, employed 660 staff and was forecasting a turnover of £52m for the 1999/00 financial year. Pocket Phone Shop was seen as one of the main rivals in its sector to leader The Carphone Warehouse - the organisation that Jordan and Briggs both worked for before launching their own venture.

At its peak the Pocket Phone Shop enlisted the services of Ulrika Jonsson to promote its new store openings, but the relationship turned sour when Jordan sued Jonsson claiming she had not fulfilled her promotional activities. It is unknown what the outcome of this action was. Despite the Pocket Phone Shop venture being successful, Jordan's first forays into the mobile phone business were not.