Irish striker John O’Sullivan enjoying life back with Accrington Stanley and off the pitch with canned water business
WHEN Ballygowan founder Geoff Read went on The Late Late Show in 1981, Gay Byrne asked in disbelief, ‘Sure who would buy water?’
His rhetorical question was greeted with guffaws among the audience and presumably among those watching at home.
But Read had the last laugh as the categorical answer in the four decades since has been ‘just about everyone’.
So, while John O’Sullivan is not surprised if there is some scepticism over his joint venture to produce and sell canned water, he is not overly concerned about it either.
As a footballer, he is well used to dealing with opinions — good, bad and indifferent — and getting on with his career regardless.
And the ex-Ireland Under-21 international has been encouraged by the initial response to Well. water — developed in conjunction with the Ralph brothers, Mark and Conor — and optimistic about its future.
O’Sullivan — who joined Accrington Stanley last month having helped Morecambe to promotion from League Two said: “The three of us are into being healthy and football.
“And we were knocking around a few ideas, thinking maybe of opening a juice cafe or something like that.
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“Then, one day Mark suggested we develop our own product. We got our thinking caps on and decided on canned water because there was nobody in Ireland doing it.”
The Ralphs’ grandfather Gerard opened the first SPAR shop in Ireland in 1973 and The Ralph Group currently operates a number of SPAR and other outlets.
And it was in those — including one in Dublin Airport’s Terminal Two — that they started stocking the 330ml cans of still and sparkling water with no marketing to see how they sold.
The results were pleasing and so, now, they are keen to let people know about their product which they believe appeals to the environmentally-conscious.
O’Sullivan said: “There’s a bit of a war on plastic now. Our cans are 100 per cent recyclable and that was important to us.
“Yes, they cost a little bit more but I think there is a realisation, especially among younger people, that there is a price to pay to help the planet.”
EARLY DAYS
For O’Sullivan, the product development was a welcome sideline to football.
Raised in Summerhill, he learned his trade at Belvedere before joining Blackburn Rovers in 2009.
He spent a total of eight years on their books, making six first-team appearances but gaining more experience during loan spells at Southport, Accrington (twice), Barnsley, Rochdale and Bury.
Since then, he has had spells at Carlisle United, Blackpool, Dundee and Morecambe before returning to the Crown Ground on a three-year deal this summer
He said: “It’s my third time signing for them and it was like nothing has changed. John Coleman is still there and so is Séamus Conneely.”
INJURY
An ankle injury in pre-season has inhibited his contribution to date. He started in their opening league game and had to come off and is biding his time for a return.
But that has only underlined to him the importance of having something other than football to occupy him.
He said: “I’m doing my coaching badges. I’ve done all the written stuff for my Uefa B, I’ve just the practical stuff to do. But football is not the be-all and end-all.
“I’ve done a sports marketing course and I’m signing up for a three-year marketing course. Of course it would be nice to walk into something else when I’m retired but it’s also about doing something I enjoy and that’s what this is.
“I train hard in the morning but when you go home an idle mind can be a dangerous place so it’s good to have something to occupy you.
“Older players would have always told me that but the penny doesn’t drop when you’re younger, it’s only when you grow up you realise that.
“If things aren’t going well, you can’t be sitting around thinking about football all the time, it’s not healthy, and an outside interest doesn’t mean you can’t be successful.
“I won promotion last year but when I got back from training, I would have been on the laptop and phone in the afternoon and evening trying to learn things that I needed to learn about and that was good.”
BUSINESS VENTURE
At first, he was reluctant to tell those in the dressing room about his sideline which was developed in conjunction with Tyrone-based company Rocwell.
He said: “You don’t know how they’re going to react. Then I showed it to the lads I travelled in with last year and asked them what they thought but without saying it was mine. I told them that afterwards because, first, I wanted to get honest opinions — good or bad.
“Anything anyone said about it, I wrote it down and every Wednesday, myself, Mark and Conor would sit down and I’d tell them about the comments to see what maybe we could do better.
“The lads at Accrington all know now, though. I was putting up stuff on Instagram and they were giving me stick and asking, ‘Have you got shares in that or something?’ and I said, ‘Well, actually . . . ’”
WATER BOY
And he is well-equipped to deal with any jibes about the likelihood of canned water taking off.
O’Sullivan said: “When you go to market to test any product there are going to be people who laugh at you.
“When Ballygowan started, people laughed at the idea of bottled water so they’re going to laugh at canned water as well, that’s the way life is.
“But the biggest thing you look for is the number of people who buy it once and then buy again and the percentages for that are high.
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“We can grow quickly and we’ve had enquiries from other countries but we want to build it up in Ireland. The three of us are good friends, we’re not in a mad rush to make money, we just want to do something we enjoy.
“I didn’t have much growing up but I hope I’m showing if you give your all you can be as successful as you want.”