Making a name in the business world after final whistle
From there we beat our way towards the capital, clogging the not-yet bypassed arteries of Monasterevin, Abbeyleix and Durrow. A clutch of tickets for Cork City’s FAI Cup final against the mighty Bohemians sat on the dash.
We sat through a dour game, high in the West Stand, before the Bohs captain Paul Whelan — brother of Liverpool and Ireland legend Ronnie — lifted the cup, thanks to a single Dave Tilson goal. We were thrown into the car again and sang all the way home anyway.
Fast forward 13 years and I’m sitting next to my Dad again, high in a Lansdowne Road stand on another wild Sunday afternoon with the punched stub of another cup final ticket in my pocket. City lose again — though this time 2-0.
And at our feet on the pitch below us, it’s all too familiar; the man who scores the heart-breaking first goal for the upstarts from Louth has the name ‘Whelan’ emblazoned on his maroon Drogheda shirt.
Meet Gavin Whelan, son of the Bohs skipper a decade earlier.
Despite his blue blood however, this is a man who knows that it’s graft that’ll win games — not the name printed on your back.
After retiring in his mid 20s with a successful career in the League of Ireland tucked in his boot bag, Whelan is now making his way in the business world. His nascent enterprise sees him cross the white line every night however as he demonstrates new football training equipment to those around the country. It’s another game — but does it replace working on the best manicured shop floors in Ireland every Friday night?
“I don’t miss it — I’m too busy trying to get this off the ground and get going,” he tells me as he points the car in the direction of Trim for another demonstration of his training equipment. “But you’d see fellas who you played with and against all the way up. A guy like Keith Fahey was one and Kevin Doyle played in the league and ... 30 grand a week ... it’s not a bad life, is it? But there was no way the part time thing could go on to be honest. You’re playing for three or four hundred quid a week. There’s no future in it. But, you know, you say you’ll give it a go again, you’re trying to balance your work and life and in the end, you ask ‘is it worth your while?’
“Then you throw your hat at it and you miss it. But I have a three-year-old boy now too to think about so I’m happy to concentrate on this. I’m too busy to miss anything.”
Though one suspects many professional footballers find the sound of the dressing room door swinging shut for the last time a disconcerting wake-up call, Whelan was not found napping when it came to life in studless footwear.
He worked for an audio-visual company selling projectors and the like, worked with the Liverpool Legends and their various events here and took a job with the Irish game’s top brass.
“I got a job with the FAI selling premium seats in the new stadium and did that for a year. Then I was looking around and had a couple of projects on the go really. Eventually I kind of crossed paths with Michael Fanning and this one business — SportsLions.com — got off the ground.”
And though hocking seats in the stadium — where maybe I’ll one day see Cork City win a cup final with my kid — was valuable experience, being back on the actual turf is home.
“The FAI job was great but it’s a different thing selling a seat worth thousands to a corporate client and going out and shaking hands with someone who volunteers their time for young lads. It’s salt-of-the-earth stuff,” Whelan explains.
“We’re just all on a level — they’re no better than me, and vice versa. They might know me from my playing days, Michael has a GAA background too so they might know him, and it’s easier.”
Those of us who remember his enterprising midfield play in the spit-and-sawdust word of League of Ireland won’t be surprised by the entrepreneurial spirit he brings to his new life. The gear he’s selling is impressively presented equipment for the country’s coaches (“it rolls out and pumps up, it’s manufactured with the same rigid technology used in those RIB boats. They’re really useful for indoor or outdoors games in schools or clubs,” he says, describing one product used for training sessions).
But will coaching be something he’ll return to? “I’d like to down the line but I think I’d like to be secure before I commit to going out with a team every Tuesday and Thursday. I want to get this going and then definitely. God knows enough people helped me all the way and I’d like to give that back down the line,” he says. For now the business is enough of a game plan. And though he says goodbye through the hands-free set as he inches towards Trim, he mentions he’d love to bring his products to Cork.
“But I might have upset a few people, did I?” he jokes?
Well, we certainly remember the name.
* Contact: adrianjrussell@gmail.com
