With everyone away from the Oval for an undetermined period, we have decided to bring Glentoran supporters some of the most compelling content from the multi award winning Glentoran Gazette. We hope you will enjoy the stories and player interviews we bring and that it will encourage you to buy a Gazette at our home matches when football returns. Many thanks to the Glentoran Supporters Committee (1923) for use of this material. The "Team Talks" series will consist of interviews with current squad members with John Grayden this season.
Navid Nasseri
interview with John Grayden
After an hour in a city centre café talking over life in Belfast, his career, professional football and the high attrition rate in the game, Navid Nasseri texted new housemate, Jonny Frazer, for a lift to their south Belfast home. A typical act of a young man coming to terms with life in a different city.
Like other newcomers to the Oval dressing room he has already seen the highs and lows of football and knows a few well-known names in the game.
From playing five a sides as a teenager in the cages at the Manchester United academy against the likes of Marcus Rashford and Jesse Lingard – “They were a great place to learn skills” - to cleaning boots and sweeping out the dressing rooms at Bury with 16 other scholars, all of whom have drifted out of the game. “I still keep in touch with four of the boys but I’m the only one still playing,” Navid said.
Another lift in a different place – shortly after he had signed his first professional contract at Birmingham City – revealed the other side of the coin. “The club had put me up in a local hotel and in the mornings Demarai Gray would pick me up for training in his black Peugot 206.
“Everyone was talking about him making the big time at that stage but he’s a Brummie and didn’t want to move away from the area. In the end he moved to Leicester and as we know Claudio Ranieri turned the club upside down and won the Premiership.
“Within six months Demarai had swapped his little Peugot for a BMW AI and a Lamborghini Hurracan. Things have turned out okay for him,” Navid said with a smile.
The midfielder-cum-winger from Wilmslow in Cheshire was at the United academy until his mid-teens alongside boys like James Wilson, now at Aberdeen and Josh Harrop, currently plying his trade at Preston, before a three-year stint at Bury as a scholar
“It was the biggest learning curve I’ve had in football,” Navid said. “It was old school; we had to clean the boots and the dressing rooms and so on.
“It was long hours and I spent a lot of time with 16 boys – more time than I spent with my family - and we experienced life on and off the pitch, fights and all. But even then the club was unstable. I had five managers in my time there - Ritchie Barker, Peter Shirtliff, Kevin Blackwell, Ronnie Jepson and David Flitcroft.
During his time there he was living at home with Dad, Nasser, now aged 59, Mum Lily and younger sister Noor who is now studying psychology and currently based in the United States. Nasser had come to Britain after the Iranian revolution overthrew the Shah and didn’t meet his wife until she arrived in the UK years later.
At the end of his apprenticeship he was picked up by Birmingham. “I signed a deal there under Lee Clark and Steven Watson at a time when the club had a reputation for bringing young talent through. I got off to a flier and was training with the first team every day.
“However Lee got sacked, Gary Rowett came in and he only wanted to play experienced players. I didn’t get to play a first team game. Rowett didn’t want to spend time developing young players. He only played Demarai because he was already in the first team,” Navid added. “Ironically, the club are now giving youngsters a chance again so who knows what would have happened had I stayed.”
Stints at Macclesfield and Syrianska in Sweden followed before shipping up at Gillingham in May 2017, a move that was to end unhappily last January.
The Iranian under 21 international is pleased to be back in a happy dressing room at the Glens. “Everyone is getting on together and they’ve helped me settle,” he said.
Again it could have been different for the 23-year-old had a trial at RKC Waalwijk in Holland worked out. “I went there for two weeks at the end of last season but the club won the play-off to get into the Eredivisie so the manager opted to play safe and fill his side with guys who had experience of Holland’s top tier,” Navid added.
Now that he is here he’s determined to make an impact. “I’m here to get games, get as fit and sharp as possible and to contribute to the dressing room in any way I can. I hope I can bring a certain amount of the professionalism that’s been instilled in me to the club.
“Eventually I would like to get back into the full time game across the water but whether I’m here for six months or a couple of years I want to give as much as I can.
“Eighty per cent of this game is about mentality. You can have all the talent in the world but in the end hard work trumps a lot of things,” he said.
The biggest difficulty he has encountered here has been adjusting to the different training pattern needed because of the mix of full-time and part-time players.
“I’ve been used to training during the mornings and I prefer that. “Here I’m training three nights a week and two mornings so I have had to adjust the times I can eat and have to be careful about late nights.”
On the standard of play he reckons the top five or six clubs here would be highly competitive in League Two in England and while Linfield and Crusaders could possibly operate in the lower reaches of League One they wouldn’t match the big clubs in the division.
“While at Gillingham last season we went up to Barnsley and drew 1-1 but I’m still wondering how we did it. We got battered from start to finish, the way they moved the ball around at speed was incredible,” Navid added.
