What Anthony Joshua and Meadowhall's new department store have in common: Chris Burn

But like the former heavyweight world champion’s defiant insistence that his crushing knockout defeat on Saturday night against Daniel Dubois at Wembley Stadium won’t be the end of his career, so Frasers Group firmly believes they can continue to get once-struggling department store buildings off the canvas.

I was among a small number of reporters invited on a preview tour of the new Frasers site in Meadowhall earlier this week as the company founded by Mike Ashley and now run by his son-in-law Michael Murray takes over a huge two-storey space which used to be home to Debenhams before it closed down in 2021.

You can read more about the tour by clicking this link but one of the most striking things about it was how determined the Frasers Group team were to sell the site as the next generation of department store.

David Epstein, Managing Director of Premium and Luxury for Frasers Group, said it has been deliberately designed to be a move away from the “archaic” stores of old whose business models ultimately failed.

While he did not name names, that obviously includes Debenhams and it is a sign of how times have moved on that many of their now-closed department stores across the country are still yet to find new tenants more than three years after the firm closed its doors.

Indeed the same is true of House of Fraser itself which was purchased out of administration by Sports Direct back in 2018.

It is now in the process of being rebranded as Frasers, while the Meadowhall opening is the 13th version of Frasers Group’s new concept for department stores involving a combined Sports Direct and Frasers.

The company has also a vast array of other well-known brand under its umbrella, including the likes of Jack Wills, Game, Evans Cycles and Sofa.com – all of which have a presence within the new store.

That obviously has the advantage of keeping profits in-house while still offering customers a wide variety of product choice under one roof.

To my eye, the new Sports Direct store seemed noticeably less cluttered and lighter than many of their other branches that I have been in while nice touches included a machine that tracks the gait of runners to help them pick out their ideal trainers and an interactive area where hikers can test out prospective new boots.

It is all a part of efforts to attract a younger crowd, with the Frasers section of the site also including plenty of designer clothing options as well as a Pret a Manger.

This is the largest new Frasers Group department store since it started opening them in the new format in 2021 with the first in Wolverhampton.

The fact there has been such rapid expansion since then tells its own story and there are ultimately hopes there could be up to 30 such stores in operation around the country.

As Anthony Joshua said this week about his boxing career, Frasers intend to prove that the concept of department stores is “far from over”.

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