Since helping form the capital’s second club just five months ago, Abu Dhabi Saracens’ chairman Brett Bowie has seen them go from strength to strength. We catch up with the self-confessed rugby fanatic ahead of the team’s opening match of the season against local rivals the Abu Dhabi Harlequins
Sitting in comfortable leather armchairs inside the clubhouse at Al Ghazal Golf Club – the home of the newly-formed Abu Dhabi Saracens – we’ve only been chatting to Brett for a few minutes but already his enthusiasm and passion for the sport is infectious.
Arriving in Abu Dhabi with his wife just over a year and a half ago, Brett’s day job is as a corporate communications trainer for Emirates Steel, the largest government-owned steel manufacturing plant in the country.
Coming from a corporate background, Brett has certainly traveled around since leaving his homeland of New Zealand. After some time spent in the UK, he has held various university teaching positions, finished his MBA and worked for Oxford University Press for a few years. He then decided he wanted to explore Asia, where his first stop was Korea before finally ending up in the Middle East and Abu Dhabi with Emirates Steel, a job to which he is obviously very dedicated.
So what inspired the amiable Kiwi to form the Saracens?
“Harlequins have been the big incumbent here for 30 years - there’s never been another club in town. I mean that’s surprising, it’s the capital and there’s seven or eight clubs up in Dubai. I think that maybe five years ago Abu Dhabi couldn’t have sustained two rugby clubs, but now it can and I think that’s been made really apparent by the response we’ve had.”
“There’s a fantastic momentum building. Dave [Jackson, Saracens’ president] has got some very good networks at very high levels and so he’s looking after that kind of stuff, while I’m looking more after the organisational day-to-day side of things.
“To finally have two clubs in Abu Dhabi that are competing against each other is fantastic. It’s gladiatorial but people love that. What’s cool about rugby is that after the game, whatever the result, people will relax, have a good time and have a good laugh – that’s what it’s all about. To me that’s community.”
With a demanding full-time job on top of everything he’s been doing to get the Saracens going, it’s certainly sounds like Brett’s a very busy man. Abu Dhabi Week finds out what goes into a typical day in his life…
6.15am: “I’m not a morning person so I probably wake up quite late compared to most full-on business people. My wife and I normally wake up at about 6.15 and I think it’s very important that we sit down together for a coffee and some breakfast – just to spend some time together before getting on with what we have to do.”
The Saracen’s are always on Brett’s mind, so after breakfast, he checks his phone to make sure he hasn’t missed anything important.
“I purchased an iPhone about seven or eight months ago and I don’t think the Saracens would exist if I didn’t have it. Literally every spare second of my day I’m spending dealing with Saracen’s stuff on that phone, sending emails, texts and using the internet.”
8am: After dropping his wife off and dealing with traffic, Brett arrives at work, where he is responsible for training 100-120 men on a daily basis.
“The job I’ve got is really great but one of the best things is that it’s also allowed me to create two Emirati touch rugby teams. We’ve got a really strong Emiratisation programme and we’ve got good relations with HCT [Higher Colleges of Technology] and VEDC [Vocational Education Development Centre], so we’ve got access to about 1,000 local boys.
“I invited VEDC to bring a busload of guys down to the touch rugby we were playing. After watching for ten minutes they all wanted to join in so we threw a ball into the middle of them and they took off – it was fantastic. The very next day they told two of their teachers, who just happened to be Tunisian ex-international players and they’ve been coaching them ever since. Those two teams are still very keen and I’m going to be involving them in our upcoming touch rugby tournaments.
“There’s very little Emirati involvement in international rugby here in Abu Dhabi and that’s something we want to change. Two or three years from now I can see us having an Emirati playing for the Saracens, who’s also playing for the national team.”
11am: “I’m busy training from now through to about 4pm so I grab lunch just before it gets crazy or I grab a quick bite to eat between the training sessions.
“Aside from the actual training, I need to catch up with my boss, deal with colleagues and prepare for training courses that I’m conducting – supervisory skills, language, technical, e-learning, whatever it is – so the actual day is quite busy, especially with the balancing act of constantly monitoring Saracens’ business on my phone.”
4pm: With one job done for the day, Brett picks his wife up and the phone has to be put to one side.
“But as soon as I’ve dropped her off again, I’m basically wheeling and dealing, talking, emailing and texting on behalf of the Saracens. I normally spend a couple of hours doing this before heading to the club.”
7pm: “Four to five days of the week I’m devoted to rugby, to the Saracens - whether it’s on the admin side or just being involved in coaching, building up the energy and fostering the spirit among the lads, as well as training hard myself.
“On top of this we’re also introducing a new fitness concept to Abu Dhabi that’s been taking up a lot of my time – we call it ‘Tribal Fitness’. The whole tribal philosophy is about building the tribe or community and totally matches what we’re trying to do with the whole club.
“Most evenings are pretty committed – meeting people, setting things up, making sure things are in place, giving people the support and then the ultimate responsibility to look after things and grow it themselves knowing that I’m only a phone call away.”
9pm: Brett’s Saracens and rugby commitments start to come to a close around this time as he arrives home for the evening to spend a couple of hours relaxing with Melanie, his wife.
“However, once Melanie falls asleep, I’m quite often sneaking out of bed and doing another hour of communication, marketing, emails, social media and stuff like that. Sometimes I even like to get up a couple of hours early to do more of the same thing – so I’m kind of burning the candle at both ends at the moment but so far it hasn’t impacted on our relationship. I don’t want it to, and I certainly can’t let it impact on my job, which it hasn’t so far. It’s going really well and I hope it continues.”
Final thoughts: “We’ve got a big season ahead of us, we’re the underdogs and we’re coming up against the incumbents tomorrow – it’s a huge day for them and probably even bigger for us. I don’t want us to be humiliated and we won’t be. I won’t say that we’re definitely going to win but I am confident that it’s going to be a very competitive game.”
Jon Muller
