New Athlone Town CEO: "I want Athlone to be proud of the work we're doing"
About five months ago, Steven Gray received an unexpected phonecall from one of his friends in football, the ex-Derry City and current Coleraine manager Ruaidhrí Higgins.
“Ruaidhrí reached out to me and said, 'You’re going to get a call from an American guy who’s just bought Athlone Town,'” Steven recalls.
“I said, ‘Why?’, and he said, ‘Well, they got in contact with me and the American guy asked me who would be the best man to run the football club. And I told him you.’
“I appreciated that reference from my good friend. I did get a call, and met the guys, but it didn’t quite pan out originally. I think they had a few difficulties themselves, in securing the club.
“Then five or six weeks ago (the club’s new chairman and investor) Nick Giannotti contacted me. It was in the middle of the night, with the time difference, but I woke up to a message from him saying, ‘I’m sorry it didn’t work out the first time, but would you take a call from me?’
“So I took the call, and here I am,” he says.
The 43-year-old Leixlip native is speaking to the Westmeath Independent in Athlone’s Radisson Blu Hotel less than a fortnight after being announced as the new chief executive of Athlone Town AFC.
An ex-League of Ireland player who had spells with Drogheda United, Derry City and Bohemians, he comes to his new role after working for the Shamrock Rovers Academy, where he was its head of education.
A football town
Since taking up his new position, he says he’s been undertaking “an internal analysis” of the club while also meeting with members of the Athlone community in order to introduce himself and get their thoughts on where the club stands in 2025.
“I’ve been at provincial clubs like Drogheda, where people are really passionate. I’ve been at Derry, really passionate. And when people say to me that Athlone is a football town, I can see it.
“I can feel it when I meet Gordon Brett. I can feel it when I meet John Stacey, or when I meet Eamon Cunningham. That just energises me even more, and excites me,” he remarks.
Since taking on his role, Steven has been keen to meet with community figures. “I met Joe O’Meara, a lovely man from the Connaught Street community group. I’m due to meet other businessmen in the area because I really want to raise the awareness of what we are doing - and when I say we, I mean myself, Nick, and the board - and what our plans are.”
On the pitch, Steven grew up playing Gaelic football and soccer, before moving to England as a teenager for a spell in the youth ranks at Southampton FC. When he returned home the central defender played for Drogheda for five years during a period of success which included FAI Cup and league title wins.
This was followed by shorter stints with Derry and Bohemians. After the recession hit, at the end of the 2000s, he made a move to Australia, where he continued to play football before going into business in Melbourne with a bar/restaurant and then a construction company.
“Not to sound dramatic, but I then reached a crossroads moment in my life: Where am I going? What do I want to do?” he says.
“I was a football person who had discovered that I liked business, and was pretty good at business. I didn’t want to be a bluffer - I wanted to learn all about it - so I moved home within six months and enrolled to do a full-time MBA in 2017.”
His educational journey saw him secure an MBA, a BSc in Physical Therapy and Applied Science, and an MSc in Elite Sports Performance from Dublin City University, as well as the UEFA Elite A Licence diploma.
“When you put together my experience, my education, my football background and all the learnings over the last 20 years or so, I’d like to think I’m a pretty good fit for the role I’m in now,” he says.
Community engagement
Outlining his plans for Athlone Town, he says they will take time to implement. “We’re going to fully operationalise and professionalise the football club. I know that sounds really strategic, but central to that is connecting the community with the football club,” he says
“I see massive potential and massive opportunity to do it right. And I’ve got a strategic approach to that.”
He hopes to set up a “community engagement team” at the club which he hopes will involve interns from TUS Midlands, the Athlone-based technological university.
“We’re going to engage with local clubs and we’re going to engage with local schools. I’m going to see what other groups are out there doing work in the community.
“The first question I’m going to ask them is, ‘How can we help you? Do you want to use our media platform? Do you want to use or stadium? Do you want to use our resources?’ How can we help you first - before we ask for anything.
“That’s going to take me a long time, because I’ve a lot of people to meet, but I really want to start to build a brand that says we’re good people and we want to do good stuff in the community. Because if you help people it will come back on you.”
He speaks of creating “five pillars” at the club, with the first four consisting of its community engagement, commercial and business engagement, the football department including development of the club’s academy, and its governance structure.
“The fifth one is interesting: I want to have an innovation or environmental pillar, where we’re an environmentally-friendly club that will maybe look at putting some solar panels on the stadium’s roof, and things like that.
“I’m going to build departments out from each pillar, it’s going to be fully operational, and we’re going to have really good, professional people.”
He says his vision for the new approach at the club should become evident to fans when they’re attending games in Lissywollen.
“In a nutshell, I want the people of Athlone to be really, really proud of the work that we’re doing. I want them to be excited to come down and enjoy the game.
“From the moment they step out of their car, I want them to be welcomed at the gate. The facility is clean, it’s safe, it’s tidy. You can go and get your burger, you can go and get your drink. There’s fan engagement.
“I want the product on the pitch to be really good, so that we’re playing entertaining football, whether it’s women’s or men’s. When people leave, I want them to say, ‘it’s being really well-run down there, I really enjoyed the game, and the people were lovely’.
“We’re providing a service, and it has to be done with class, quality and professionalism,” he says.
“I know people don’t like it when I say that I want to run it like a successful business. (They think) it takes the passion out of football, but it shouldn’t.”
Steven was speaking before travelling last week with the club’s women’s team to their European games against Breidablik and Red Star Belgrade in the Netherlands.
“To be travelling with the team as CEO is a surreal moment for me. It’s a very proud moment,” he says.
“You step into a CEO role, and then in just over a week’s time you’re on a plane to a Champions League game. I know I’m going to remember that for the rest of my life.”
Premier Division hopes
The Athlone Town women’s team has become a domestic powerhouse, currently sitting on top of the table as they bid to retain their league title. It’s a different story for the Athlone men’s team, however, which is languishing at the foot of the First Division.
When asked if it’s the club’s ambition to secure promotion to the men’s Premier Division over the coming years, Steven smiles.
“The words ‘over the coming years’ are the ones that are most relevant there,” he replies.
“I know the fans probably won’t like to hear it, but we have a lot of work to do here, and there’s certainly no rush to get us to the Premier Division. We need to build a football club. We need to build departments. We need to make sure that we’re financially sustainable. We need to have good people around.
“When the business is in a good place, when we’ve got money in the account and we’re absolutely sure that everything we’re doing is sustainable, and that we’re fully operational, it might be a conversation to have with the chairman, to say, ‘will we invest a little bit more now to get promoted?’”
He points out that the ten Premier Division clubs are now fully-professional, something which is still a distance away for Athlone.
“It would be a big step for the football club to say, let’s go full-time, and then have a plan to challenge for the top half of the table, or the top four, in time.
“The stuff that you’re kind of dreaming about is a full house and one of the big teams in in the Premier Division - whether it be St Pat’s, Shamrock Rovers, Bohs or Shelbourne - coming down to Athlone and we’ve got a strong team, a strong staff, a really strong brand, and we’re ready to take those teams on and compete.
“Of course that’s a goal for me and the ownership, but we do need to be patient.”
The current period of transition at Athlone Town began in earnest on July 4 when Nick Giannotti - the club’s chairman and self-described “controlling member” - announced his arrival. Steven is enthusiastic about his interactions with the American businessman to date.
“I’m not just saying this because it’s an interview, but he’s all in,” he says.
“He’s invested in Plymouth Argyle. He’s invested in Larne. He’s a successful businessman. But he’s on the phone to me, in a supportive capacity, all the time.
“We speak multiple times during the day. We’re in constant communication. So his level of support is amazing, and he always finishes the call with, ‘Can I do anything for you?’ which is something I really appreciate.
“We’re building a really, really strong bond and that relationship with Nick is really important to me. It’s not a transactional business relationship. It’s very personal.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if the phone rings with a call from him now, as we’re talking! He’s been an amazing support and he has great energy.”
Confident of success
As our conversation draws to a close, Steven’s parting message is one of confidence that the plans he has for the future development and success of the club will come to fruition.
“People talk about having good people around, and I do want good people, but I want people who are good at their jobs,” he says.
“I want us all to understand that we have a massive obligation to the community to provide a professional service that the whole of the Midlands, not just Athlone, can be proud of.
“When I meet businesspeople, fans, community people, staff and players, I want them all to look into my eyes and see someone who is 100% invested in this and who is going to deliver this.
“We’re seeing changes already, we’re seeing a difference, and bit-by-bit it’s going to get better and better. I’m also conscious that it’s a challenge right now, because I want to understand how everything works, but I’m really enjoying it,” Steven continues.
“As a player I was average, confidence-wise, but I haven’t got one shred of doubt in my mind that myself, Nick and the board are going to really deliver something to the Midlands area that people are going to be really proud of - which is a really strong business, football, women’s team, academy, men’s team, commercial, community.
“It’s going to take time but I have an insane belief in my own ability and the board’s ability to deliver that.
“I don’t have a doubt in my mind. I really believe that,” he concludes.