How deep is your love? How deep are my pockets, more like!
WHICH Orange brother chose the most rewarding route in life?
Jason, as a member of Take That, or Simon as the owner of Sale Sharks?
OK, game day as the boss of a Premiership rugby union club may not match a sell-out concert before thousands of screaming girls but, in its own way, it must feel like you Rule The World.
As a Sale fan for 30 years, surely there can be nothing better for Simon Orange than seeing his club competing in Europe – and with genuine designs on the domestic play-offs for the first time in more than a decade, thanks to the expensive train set he has assembled in the north west. This must be the time when it all comes alive?
Orange, a multimillionaire Cheshire businessman who used to be Gary Barlow’s financial advisor, sighs and shakes his head. “Most of the time it’s not that enjoyable to watch,” said Orange, who bought the club three years ago.
“When we played Wasps at home earlier this season I enjoyed the last one minute and 15 seconds when I knew we couldn’t lose.The rest of it was not really enjoyable.
“I used to enjoy the games. If we won it was fantastic and if we lost I was down for a bit. It’s so much more important and so much more stressful now.
“With hindsight, if I’d have known then what I know now I might not have bothered.” It is costing him and co-owner Ged Mason upwards of £3million per year to cover the club’s losses. He came into the position with the best intentions of prudence but found that bumping along in lower mid-table was no fun. “I figured it wouldn’t be a massive drain,” he said. “Unfortunately, I hadn’t realised what it was to take over a club wanting to be a top-half club and not a bottom-half club so very slowly and surely I’ve gone completely the other way. I came in because I wanted to improve and help the club but I wanted to do that sensibly. The ‘sensibly’ has gone a bit is the truth of the matter.
“I’m now willing to spend a few million quid a year and build a squad to compete at the top. If the salary cap allowed we would like another four players. So actually if we were given the freedom I’d probably waste another two million quid a year!”
The Champions Cup, which concludes for Sale at home to Glasgow tomorrow, has proven a step too far as yet but the blowout on the likes of World Cup winners Faf de Klerk and Lood de Jager – who finally arrived in Manchester yesterday after being injured in the final – has Sale well equipped to push on from fourth in the Premiership.
They enter the new year as strong contenders to make the semi-finals for the first time since they won the title in 2006. But like countless Premiership owners before him, Orange has realised there is no pot of gold at the end of the rugby rainbow and he has made peace with that.
For all the pain and agony of match-day and the hole in his pocket, he has become an addict. He is in this for the long haul.
“I can never say never but I suspect this is for life now,” he said. “As you can tell from what we’re spending now, we want to compete at the top and hopefully if we can get it right, it won’t send me bankrupt.”
JAMIE ROBERTS, 33, has been released from his Bath contract to join the Cape Town-based Stormers in Super Rugby.
THE ‘OTHER’ ORANGE BROTHER ON WHY HE IS SPENDING HIS FORTUNE TO TAKE SHARKS TO NO1