RUGBY-mad Matthew Wilson realised his sporting ambition when he was signed up by his hometown club as a teenager.

These days, he’s tackling weighty business issues as commercial director at Milnsbridge-based The Horizon Group, which supplies products including signs, furniture and other items of fabrications to sectors including transport, healthcare, education, leisure and construction.

Matthew, 34, who was brought up in Fixby, was signed by Huddersfield Giants when he was 17 on a three-year deal.

He played mainly for the academy and reserves before quitting at the age of just 20 – having had few opportunities to break into the first team.

“Rugby was all I was interested in,” he says. “It was just unfortunate that when I was at the club, we had five first team coaches in four years.

“Not many of the new lads got an opportunity – although Marcus St Hilaire, Paul Jackson and Ryan Hudson all went on the successful careers.

“I started playing rugby union when I was eight, but my best friend at the time got me to go to Underbank Rangers from the age of 13.

“I went to the Giants and was signed up. I was over the moon. I was playing for the under-19s in the academy during the week and for the reserves on Saturdays.

“I’m still a massive Giants fan and watch them play. I’m very confident they can do all three – win the Super League, the Grand Final and the Challenge Cup. They have the squad and I like the way Nathan Brown is picking and switching his team to match the opposition.”

Seeking employment after leaving the Giants, Matthew was offered a job at Horizon Signs by managing director Keith Ball .

He spent five years with the firm at Britannia Road before leaving in 2004 to set up his own business supplying whiteboards and pinboards for schools and colleges.

He sold the business in 2007 to a rival firm based in Scotland, but continued to work for them for 18 months before becoming frustrated by the way things were done. “They couldn’t get things out of the factory on time for the customers,” he says. We were behind with our projects.

“I had always kept in touch with Keith and his son Ross at Horizon Signs, so I returned to the company.”

In 2009, Matthew set up Horizon BSF to focus on providing products for the education sector and has never looked back.

Now he is commercial director for The Horizon Group, which has been formed with the merger of Horizon Signs, Horizon BSF, transport sector signs specialist Horizon PTI, metalwork specialist Horizon Fabrications and paint finish facility Horizon Powder Coating.

The merger means different parts of the group can collaborate on projects, pool resources and offer more competitive rates.

Horizon BSF is providing items including whiteboards, pinboards, racking, shelving, mobile storage units, lockers and changing room benches to the contractors on schemes to build or refurbish schools and colleges across the country.

The company got a boost from the Building for Schools programme, which was launched under the previous government.

But it has maintained momentum and can boast healthy order books taking it well into next year.

Not surprisingly, Matthew says he’s too busy to play rugby now, adding: “I have probably played about five games in 14 years!”

Busy doesn’t cover it! Work on the books includes supplying products for 12 schools in Birmingham, four schools in Southampton and others in Elgin, Scotland. The company is also supplying hundreds of items for new student accommodation at York University and equipment for police stations in Wakefield.

Says Matthew: “A lot of my time is spent out on site meeting commercial managers for the main contractors.

“I try to be very ‘hands-on’. I do all the technical drawings and data sheets for the rooms for which we are supplying furniture and fixtures.”

Conscious of the problems faced by his previous employer, Matthew says managing resources is the key to getting products out on time to the customer.

“We try to control the amount of work we get through,” he says.

“We do a good job and we offer a really good service. We know our capabilities and we can accommodate more staff and use more space if we need.”

Matthew, who has worked from the shopfloor up, said:”I am hungry for work and I don’t want to miss out on opportunities.

“If I find out about a contract somewhere I will go down every path I can possibly go down to find out how I can get involved. I’m aggressive, but in a nice way!”

Away from work, Matthew finds little time to relax.

“I have moved house a number of times and I have always been interested in doing up the property,” he says.

“We got a derelict barn above Halifax which we have converted in about six months. We started in summer 2005 and I said we would be in by Christmas. We moved in on December 22 – although without any internal doors!

“We have some land with the property, so I’m always busy putting up fencing or dry stone walling.

“It taught me a bit about managing a building site – which comes in useful for what I do at work.”