A man from a well-known York football family is tackling a whole new ball game having landed the challenge of re-opening and expanding what is probably the city's best known fishing tackle shop.

Dave Woods - whose father Alan was a ball-winning midfielder for York City in the 1960s and whose brother, Neil, also had a spell at Bootham Crescent - has taken on York Tackle Shop from Barry and Rita Bell, who have retired from running the business after 20 years.

Dave, made redundant as factory manager with the Sara Lee food company in Bridlington when it went into receivership last year, overheard a chance remark in the shop that it was for sale and he leaped at the chance to buy.

He decided to expand, rebrand and re-locate the business from its former home in Hull Road to new premises at nearby Badger Hill. At 400 sq ft, the new "York Tackle" on Yarburgh Way, next to Archbishop Holgate's School, is almost twice the size of the old shop.

Dave, 41, who grew up in Rawcliffe and went to Canon Lee School, first took up fishing as a child when the rest of his family were football mad .

He said: "York has one of the best angling scenes in the north east with more good, clean rivers and lakes coming on stream all the time, so there are thousands of anglers who rely on a local source of tackle, bait and knowledge."

Updated: 10:57 Monday, October 25, 2004