Breakfast with Bristol24/7: Mark Kelly

It could not have been better timed if Mark Kelly had tried. Midway through our breakfast at the Coffee Shop at Ashton Gate, just as he had explained to me how proud they are to use local suppliers and employ local staff across the stadium, a delivery bike pulled up outside from Mark’s Bread, whose bakery is only a few hundred yards away.

Originally from Dublin, when Mark himself first arrived at Ashton Gate in February 2015 from his job as general manager at the Grand Hotel on Broad Street, it was a very different place.

Since he began working at the stadium, he has been part of the team delivering what has so far seen £45m of stadium developments. That is set to continue with the construction of a new sports and convention centre which will become the permanent home of the Bristol Flyers basketball team, as well as a four-star hotel, larger shop, museum and car park.

If you have seen that viral video with various events Photoshopped onto the big screen, that is England fans celebrating wildly at Ashton Gate’s Sports Bar & Grill, which Mark helped create. And his work does not just take place at Ashton Gate either, with him also on the team responsible for the building of new training grounds for Bristol Bears and Bristol City in Failand.

After all of that, Mark could do with a cup of coffee and a sit-down, but during our breakfast, his eyes still dart about because the smooth running of this cafe on the corner of the Lansdown and South stands is his responsibility. We both chose to have a bacon sandwich – made with Mark’s Bread bread, of course – and a flat white, made with beans from Roasted Rituals of Hengrove.

Mark lives in Easton-in-Gordano and works at the stadium on weekdays, is here for every sports match and also for the summer concerts, which this year – coronavirus permitting – will see the Killers and Manic Street Preachers playing on June 9, following in the footsteps of the Spice Girls, Take That, Muse and Rod Stewart last year.

His transfer from the hotel industry to running a stadium came following a chance encounter with Martin Griffiths, now chairman of Ashton Gate, when he ran a hotel company Mark used to work for in Birmingham. After staying in touch, Mark’s first job here was as chief operations officer for Ashton Gate – then one of just two full-time staff – just as plans for a new stadium at Ashton Vale were underway and later shelved, meaning full speed ahead for the plans to develop Ashton Gate.

“We’ve grown incredibly in those six years from where we were to here,” Mark said with a smile. “It’s now a great experience. And that was the ambition because we had nothing. The expectation of the old Ashton Gate was pretty poor because it was one of the oldest stadiums in the league. We had no hospitality. It was difficult at the start to know what people actually wanted.”

Mark Kelly is responsible for the day-to-running of Ashton Gate Stadium. Illustration by Anna Higgie

Biting into his bacon sarnie, Mark said that Griffiths and Bristol Sport owner Steve Lansdown gave him “a blank canvas” for the stadium. “They put a huge amount of trust in me to actually go away and tell them what the hospitality should be, how the business should be run, what the profits were, what the costs are. It was basically the opportunity to create a business from scratch… It was a fantastic opportunity for me, a huge amount of pressure, but I think what inspired me was Martin Griffiths and Steve Lansdown empowering me to do that.”

Mark added: “It really wasn’t about taking the money, it was about creating a community within south Bristol for employment. Steve has a big thing about putting back into the community where we can. A lot of people say that but he genuinely means it.”

So rather than getting an outside catering company in, Mark set up an in-house one for the stadium, employing local people who may otherwise struggle to find a job, including setting up apprenticeship schemes. He set up local supply chains, within south Bristol if possible. “It’s about investing in the local area.”

Mark’s Bread sandwiches now finished, I left the stadium, cycling towards North Street down the walkway where the sports and convention centre could soon be built, as Mark returned to his office within the stadium, hoping to turn more ambitious plans into reality.

Coffee Shop, Ashton Gate Stadium, BS3 2EJ
Bacon sandwich x 2 £7.50
Flat white x 2 £5.20
Total: £25.40

Main image by Anna Higgie

Read more: Ambitious expansion plans revealed for Ashton Gate Stadium