It’s a new season and a new dawn for Taunton’s rugby scene.
With the promoted Titans playing their first ever season in National League One, they are well covered if they continue to smash through glass ceilings for there’s a new name on the gate. Veritas Glazing Solutions Ltd has signed up as the club’s naming rights sponsor on a multi-year deal with the players wearing the company logo across their chests at the newly styled Veritas Park.
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And yet there’s also an element of “plus ça change…” as Veritas is headed by a triumvirate of West Country rugby devotees, spear headed by former Titans favourite Ben Turner and flanked by his old friends Charlie Stoyle and Matt Goss. The fact that they get on so well together is a strength of their business as Turner explains, “We’ve grown up playing rugby together and good teamwork is at the core of our work.” If Charlie, Ben and Matt are the company’s front row, they are quick to acknowledge the entire team with over twenty-five handling everything from marketing to installations.
Veritas endeavours to work with clients from enquiry through to installation, helping them with bespoke glazing designs through their network of architects, designers and builders. Their Main glazing solutions are Crittall doors, windows and they also have a Cortizo range. Ben, formerly the rugby club’s Commercial Coordinator, came up with the idea of starting a glazing company whilst living in London and he roped in Charlie and Matt as he knew their skills sets would complement his own. “We tend,” says Goss, “to pick up one another’s work and we dovetail really well.”
Hearing the words Veritas use in talking about their work –teamwork, overlap, support – it’s clear that their shared passion for rugby has transferred to their workplace. Small wonder then that Turner’s hankering to be involved once again with Taunton Titans sees him bringing Veritas’ brand and name to the ground. There’s even, he admits with a sparkle of delight in his eye, “a fair chance he and Matt could be persuaded to lace up their rugby boots on the odd occasion if required.”
Titans’ Forwards coach, Chris Brown, who worked with Turner when he first arrived at the club, reflects on how Ben would be well suited to making a success of leading a company that specialising in structural and glazing solutions, “Ben always put the team before himself and was central to our architecture with a clear understanding of how effective teams operate.” Brown goes on to observe that sponsors at Taunton Titans tend to be businesses whose the inherent value in investment in a local, aspirational enterprise and take a medium to long term view on it.
Continuity is key to the Veritas message, a fact borne out by them committing to a long-term partnership which will see them install a showroom displaying some of their glass door systems at Veritas Park. Stoyle underlines the pledge that it’s not a one-season link, “We’re so excited by this and really want to grow with the club.” Having spent time working together in London, the guys were looking for a base in the South-West and the Hyde Lane venue with accessibility to the M5 corridor was an obvious fit for their own expansion.
Goss adds, “Ben’s obviously got a very tight emotional connection with the club but for all three of us our love of rugby is a big part of why we wanted to be involved and it’s also a sense of home. We’ve been in London for a while but we’re all essentially West Country lads.” Knowing that Taunton had made it onto National League One was happy circumstance. The Veritas team wanted to put something into Taunton RFC and Turner was well aware of how well previous sponsors had done from their partnership with the rugby club. “Like all partnerships, the more you are prepared to put in and contribute to the whole set-up, the more you are likely to get out of it at the end of the day.”
These are good blokes. Have a chat and a beer with them on match day. They’re the sort of people we’re really pleased to have around the club.
— Longstanding Titans utility back, Nick Mason, urges visitors to Veritas Park to get to know the Veritas team when they are at the ground.
Reflecting that Ben was one of the players at Taunton at the start of his and Tony Yapp’s coaching tenure, Chris Brown sums up the feeling of all involved at the club, “We are excited by the opportunity to work with Veritas and are looking forward to welcoming Ben back in the knowledge that he has a genuine passion for the club.”
Written by Richard Kitzinger