Gilsenan & Co aim to do the business

Football and business have a lot in common. Certainly Colm Gilsenan believes that to be case. His daily job involves managing people and now he's doing the same at the weekends.

A former player with Torro Utd and Navan Cosmos, Gilsenan is a young manager, at the foothills of his career. He is now the manager of Navan Town Cosmos FC and on Saturday he watched his troops dig out a 1-1 draw with Bailieboro Celtic in North East Football League Div 3A. It was a relentless, uncompromising contest but entertaining as well with both sets of players focused on playing football; some very good football too.

There wasn't many there to see the game unfold but those who like to watch the beautiful game on TV could do worse than go out to observe their local team from time to time. They might be surprised by the quality of football served up.

There there was a lot of skill on display in this contest played in the light, if persistent, rain on the MDL's all-weather pitch. Skill and honest endeavour with no real nasty fouls. Anytime the contest threatened to boil over referee Jason Sheerin was quickly on the case. He showed a couple of yellow to remind the players who exactly was in charge. They took note and focused on the football. Job done.

But back to that connection between business and football. Colm Gilsenan works as a production manager with the medical device company - ArcRoyal - based in Kells and manages a team there of "60 to 70 people." The basic qualities he finds needed to run an enterprise like that from Monday to Friday are very similar to that of looking after a squad of footballers on a Saturday afternoon.

"I'm big into leadership and the skills involved in management, the skills involved in getting a group of people or players together and all rowing in behind and looking to achieve the same goal. That's what I'm about, they are the kind of traits you need to succeed no matter what you do, in business or sport.

"It's about everyone pulling together and creating an environment where people can grow and go out and do their business, it's the same in everyday life. Managing 15 footballers at the weekend you would think it would be easier but its not!" he added with a laugh.

So what does he feel is the most important quality for a group of people to have in order to drive them on; fulfil their potential? "Everyone involved wants to come up and play football, nobody enjoys having just a fringe role, just taking part, you need to be involved and have a goal at the end of it. People need to feel part of it all.

"Our goal with Navan Town Cosmos is to win football games and it's slow enough start (NTC have drawn two and lost one of their first three league games) but we'll get there. That's very important in bringing a team together, have the same targets, the same goal.

"With Navan Town Cosmos everybody knows what we want to do. We want to bring the club back up through the divisions. There's a good underage structure at the club and the higher up the senior team is in the league the better it will be for those young lads coming through. Setting goals. It's so important and we all know what our goal is in this club."

One of the big questions that will preoccupy Gilsenan this week and his assistant manager Mattie Garry is what happened to Navan Town Cosmos at half-time. The previous week they created a series of chances against Slane and went in at the break 1-0 ahead. Then, bang, they collapsed at the wicket.

The second-half turned to to be veritable nightmare and Navan Town Cosmos ending up losing 1-6. On Saturday they dominated the opening 45 minutes then fell away and the weather had nothing to do with that reality.

If they can reproduce in the second-half of matches the kind of enterprising form they displayed during the first 45 minutes of Saturday's clash they will surely profit and prosper in the long term. That's Gilsenan's aim anyway.

The ethos of the management team is about fostering a team spirit and that was evident too in the way assistant manager Garry spent some of game going up and down the sideline extolling the NTC players to encourage - not criticise - each other.

It's now three years since the two long-established identities Navan Town and Navan Cosmos joined forces to become one club, one identity. People agreed it was the best option and the marriage appears to have worked out just fine.

Navan Town Cosmos were playing at the MDL on Saturday because development work continues at their home ground out in the Bawn. Navan Town FC spent €135,000 on developing the ground initially. The amalgamation happened and since then a further €46,000 has been invested. Two full-sized pitches should be made available for use by August/September. After that a further €180,000 is earmarked for the provision of two further pitches on the 10-acre site.

NTC secretary John Conaty was at the game on Saturday and he talked about how the club has acquired various funding over the years. The club's success in that pursuit should be noted by others with ambition. "If you apply for grants and do it properly, have a properly structured plan, you'll get the funding," he said.

Another great local soccer personality at Saturday's engaging contest was Jimmy Mangan. He was a central figure with Navan Town back in the day and he proudly pointed out on Saturday that he is now 90-years-of-age. He certainly doesn't look it.

Perhaps it's the football that keeps him young at heart?