Kennedy bankrolls Booster for north west
BRIAN Kennedy spent millions bankrolling Sale’s rise to become Premiership champions in 2006 and now the Scottish businessman is embarking on a very different mission that should prove every bit as uplifting.
Kennedy, 60, who made his fortune in double glazing, has swapped the corporate world of the hospitality box for the Neubria Booster Box, in a bid to help financially-stricken families in the North West feed themselves in a dignified manner.
Taking the name of the wellness and supplement company behind the initiative, which is run by his son Jonny, a former Sale Sharks player, the booster box is a home delivery service of essential foods for those struggling in the coronavirus pandemic.
“Neubria, which is based in Cheshire, has launched this initiative, the Neubria Booster Box, and I am funding it,” Kennedy snr said.
“Rather than sitting back and waiting for everything to level off and resolve itself, we thought let’s take the initiative and go out and buy a load of cans and dried fruit and put them in boxes and send them out directly to families who are going through a tough time right now.
“Food banks are a wonderful initiative and have served a lot of people, and we admire them, but what we’ve found out is that a lot of people are quite proud and don’t like the prospect of getting the coupons and then having to go along to the food bank in person.”
The son of a window cleaner, Kennedy grew up on a council estate in Edinburgh and knows from personal experience how embarrassing asking for hand-outs can be, which is why discretion is so important in his eyes.
“We were brought up in a very humble home, in high rise flats in Edinburgh, and because we had limited income as a family, we qualified for free school dinners.
“You used to queue up with all your mates and they’re all holding a blue ticket and you’ve got a pink ticket because you qualified for free dinners. So we remembered that experience, and thought here’s a way, if a family needs help, genuinely needs help, that they can get it discreetly.
“They simply fill out an online form and that then seamlessly goes through to our logistics centre, and three days later, they will have a plain cardboard box, full of food, delivered to their home.
“It’s an initiative we all feel good about. We’re all in the same storm but we’re in different boats. It’s very easy for us to sit in our home eating like lords, nice and warm and secure, saying this is a bit miserable because we can’t go on with our normal lives, but there are a lot of hard-working families out there who don’t have enough food to put on their table. We are just trying to do our little bit to help.
“We’ve already sent a few hundred boxes out to the UK elderly and a charity we currently work with through the BK Trust. We’re in the process of putting together a 1000 boxes and we will hopefully do 1000 boxes a week eventually, if the need is there, to the people of the north west, initially.”
Twenty years ago, Kennedy did more than a little bit to help Sale. Having seen his dream of taking over Hibernian FC dashed, the Wilmslow RFC 2nd XV back rower bought the Cheshire club for a pound and wrote off all its debts.
In his first season, Sale haemorrhaged £2m on gates of 2,500. But the father-of-five kept the faith and the arrival of Jason Robinson from Rugby League, a fair smattering of exciting home-grown talents, particularly in the backs, and the shrewd recruitment of Philippe Saint-Andre as DoR, all helped to put the club on the path to becoming champions of England.
Kennedy explains: “The way we won the league in 2006, we invested in the pack. We had some very good backs who had come through the ranks – Steve Hanley, Mark Cueto, Charlie Hodgson and Wiggy (Richard Wigglesworth) – but we always struggled to produce the power up front in great depth.
“As an international back, a captain of France, Philippe recognised the importance of a good pack above anything else – that’s why I recruited him, he knew you had to win the war in the boiler room.
“He was a tremendous recruiter and I knew he would bring in the power up front that we needed, and that’s exactly what he did.
“That’s where the majority of the salary cap should go, in the pack. It’s what worked for us and I think it’s working for Steve Diamond and Sale Sharks now.”
Victims of their own success, Sale could no longer afford to keep hold of cult heroes like Sebastien Chabal and the squad broke up, never to be the same again.
“Sebastien Chabal, Sebastien Bruno and
Lionel Faure weren’t earning a lot at the time in France and we didn’t have to pay them big salaries to come to England. They came because Philippe was here, and there was a bit of a Gallic theme,” Kennedy said.
“They made their mark and we won the Premiership but from that point onwards we couldn’t afford to keep them. They were in high demand and offered much higher salaries elsewhere.”
With Kennedy determined to make the Sharks pay their own way as a club, the gap between themselves and the big spenders grew.
Out of the pandemic and the Saracens salary cap scandal, Kennedy hopes more Premiership clubs will apply the same common sense approach and tighten their belts accordingly. Otherwise he fears for the future viability of the league.
“Does rugby have a future going forward? I don’t think it does unless clubs agree and adhere to the salary cap and spend according to the level of income they have got.
“If you have clubs, as we currently do, losing anything between £4-8m a year, that’s fine as long as the owner is prepared to fund these losses but at some point in the future, that’s going to stop, and they’ll say I’ve had enough. The clubs have got to drive towards self-sufficiency.”
Kennedy said enough is enough in 2016 when he sold the club to a Manchester-based consortium, led by Simon Orange.
Orange has invested heavily in the Sharks and has put the club in a good position to emulate the success of 2006.
Even with his prudent approach, Kennedy still paid a hefty price for making the Sharks the top team in England, but he cherishes the memories more than cash in the bank.
Was it worth it? “Definitely, money is just a number in a bank account. Yes, we invested a lot of money over the period, but we made some fantastic memories for family, friends and for the club itself.”
Meanwhile, Kennedy has not ruled out a return to rugby one day adding: “If there was a club that had potential and needed help, and could achieve sustainability and compete at the highest level, then yes, I would.”