Consilium Contracting Services: keeping it local
With hometown pride driving them forward, Consilium Contracting Services are not only proud to sponsor St Mirren, but show what a local company can do
It’s every football fan’s dream to see their name on the back of their team’s shirt. However, this only happens for a very finite quantity of any club’s support as we don’t all have the talent to make it onto the pitch.
Yet for Paul McGrath and the team at Consilium, their ambition came to fruition in an alternate manner as they became the proud sponsors of St Mirren FC, making them the first Paisley-based company to do so since Graham’s Buses in the 80s.
Make no mistake, the significance of this is by no means lost on Paul.
“The vast majority of the McGraths are big fans who go to all of the games, home and away. Since we took over the sponsorship last season, we’re the first family-based company to do this in 40 years and the last time it happened, we won the Scottish Cup. However, Graham’s Buses actually didn’t have their company name on the day of the cup final because the sponsorship ran out so we’ll be ensuring that doesn’t happen!
“It’s an interesting parallel and with this manager, I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re doing it too within three years of taking on the sponsorship.”
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Dubbing Stephen Robinson the “best manager I’ve seen in my lifetime”, Paul and the company are thrilled to be affiliated with the club at this crucial point in its history.
“It was a dream but I didn’t ever think it was going to happen when I started the company 11 years ago or even five years ago when we started putting money into the club. The whole process of getting the strips designed takes a year, so it’s actually been a lengthy journey and we got a say in how our logo is presented on it. I think I went through 13 versions (laughs). I had a whole year of no’ telling anyone, apart from the family, so that was tough!”
Helen McLeod (Women’s Captain), Paul McGrath, Mark O’Hara (Men’s Captain)
Despite having an established inroad to the club as the main shirt sponsor, Paul is adamant that it hasn’t made him concerned with the intricacies of its everyday operations.
“I want to try and remain a fan as much as possible,” he affirms. “We don’t make demands on the club and I just want to do the best for them as I can because we’re really passionate about Paisley and Renfrewshire.”
A fan since he was a wee boy in the mid 80’s when his uncle started taking him to games, Paul’s love of the town means that he’s savouring seeing more people get behind the local team as opposed to the enormous clubs in neighbouring Glasgow.
But, his commitment to the town extends far beyond football and is deep rooted in not only how Consilium Contracting Services has progressed, but the goals for the future.
“It’ll always be based here”, he declares. “Even after I pass on, someone else from Paisley will take the reins. The other dream that I have is having an office built in Glenburn, where I’m from. Having that purpose-built space there, ideally somewhere around where Mill & Brae is, would be amazing as that’d be great for the trucks. For me, that might even eclipse the sponsorship. I don’t know if we’ll realise it, but you’ve got to have goals, eh?”
Raised in the old Moorfoot Avenue until he was moved, this upbringing was fundamental to the socially rooted nature of Consilium’s business and this is very much by design.”
“Everything we do is multi-trade, multi-discipline for councils and housing associations. It’s almost as if it was meant to be as everything about us comes from that background in Glenburn and that’s why we’re so passionate about what we do with the housing associations.
We’re ultimately getting paid for it, but we always strive to do as good a job as we can and we’ve even started issuing welcome packs to new tenants when they move in that have things like tea towels, a cloth, scourers, biscuits, coffee, all things like that.”
From working alongside St Mirin’s Cathedral to aiding with OneRen’s Summer Reading Challenge by providing £500 worth cinema tickets to kids, Paul and everyone at the company are always determined to “do that wee bit more”.
Now set to have their logo emblazoned across the St Mirren tops for another two years, Paul already has “goosebumps” at the prospect of being on the forthcoming 150th anniversary strips. But above all, he wants his company’s success to be an example to what people from deprived areas of the town can do.
“It’s all about hard graft and hard work”, he maintains. “That’s all there is to it.”
Consilium Contracting Services, Business First, Burnbrae Road, Paisley, PA3 3FP, 0800 689 1462. To find out more about this excellent local company, visit their website.