Bohemian Football Club Crest

Bohemians’ pairing with TNS of Wales in the Champions League is logistically simple compared to the challenge a draw against the champions of Montenegro or Azerbaijan might have represented.

But Bohemian FC and its new general manager John Doran still have a major job on their hands to deal with two Champions League matches, two Airtricity League matches and friendlies against two English Premier League teams, all in the space of eleven days in July. “It will require tremendous effort and tremendous preparation,” says John Doran. “But we have a very good team between those who are working here and those who are supporters. I have no doubt we will rise to the challenge.”

Doran came to the position of general manager with long experience in business management but also in football. He has been a player from childhood to the present and a coach in all age-groups, with women, and in the League of Ireland. It was also a return to Bohemian FC over 35 years after he played with the club, first as an amateur, then as one of the first professionals. “I had nine very enjoyable years here and after I left, every Monday, no matter where I was, even when I was working in Montevideo, I would check the Bohemians results. It was a passion, something in the heart,” Doran says.

He applies much of what we learned on the field and as a coach in his approach to business. Thinking about gearing up for the busy schedule ahead, John Doran says “it’s much the same as picking a team to play a match. Do you have the right person in the right slot and do they have the skills to do what’s required? We have very good people here, a good group. We also have to understand the needs and expectations of the supporters and meet those expectations.”

As a player, Doran needed to be able to switch between playing mode and business mode. “I was on call when I was training with Bohemians. After training, I might work late into the night fixing computer systems in one of the big companies in the city.” He was an amateur player with Bohemians for two years, then a professional when he was part of the FAI Cup-winning team of 1970 with Tony O’Connell. He recalls from his amateur days that “the cameraderie was unbelievably good. There was no pressure in terms of gates and money. Every Sunday we’d go to a hotel for dinner and then at 9 o’clock disperse to the clubs. You didn’t play any different because you weren’t paid. To be professional is a frame of mind.”

He says he learned to handle pressure through having to switch between playing and working for his company but he also learned a lot from being in a sports team. “The training you got in football was ideal for working in a commercial environment. You learn how to man-manage people in work. I learned a hell of a lot from football managers and then from coaching myself, from mixing with people and developing interpersonal skills.” He considers there is no major difference between managing a football club and managing another business. “Bohemian FC has been a club based on voluntary effort and people have been facilitating towards each other. But sometimes there are hard decisions to be made from a business point of view. My task is to make the club more effective and efficient in meeting expectations and requirements from a service point of view.”

Tactics and strategy are part of business as they are of sport. “Everything we do now contributes to the short-term tactical gains and at the same time to the long-term strategic goals – where we want to be in the future. When we deal with the challenge of the packed programme ahead, the benefits will be huge. It will contribute to sustainability and to reaching the end of the season in a reasonable position. We have to start looking now at what will keep us sustainable in 2020.”

Well before then, Bohemians will be in a new home and John Doran sees the move as an opportunity to reposition the club in the community. “We can be a bigger part of the community through having a sports centre to provide services to the wider community. Location is going to be a key factor. If we can have a centre that gives services to the community then we can survive.”

When he was working in the Uruguayan capital, Montevideo, Doran was a member of a football club, Carrasco, a top amateur team with over 5,000 club members. Their facilities included 22 clay tennis courts, two football pitches, a basketball arena, three swimming pools, a theatre and a restaurant. There were facilities for children from age 6 upwards, including floodlit pitches for 7-a-side. John Doran believes that model may be transferable in part to Dublin’s northside. “You always have to be ambitious. You have to change with the needs of the supporter or customer.”