He turned down his dream car. Two months later, Covid hit.

Graeme Kelly turned down his dream car in January 2020. Two months later, Covid hit. Because he hadn’t taken the dividend, he was able to pay every single member of his staff their full wage for the entire duration of the pandemic. Nobody left the business. Nobody was let down. He didn’t tell anyone at the time. He just did it because it was the right thing to do.

In episode three of Football for Breakfast, Jim Johnson sits down with Graeme in the greasy spoon café to talk about football, people and what happens when you put both at the heart of everything you do.

Where it started

They start in the mid-80s at Anfield – Graeme’s first game, Liverpool versus Nottingham Forest, a two nil win against a side still carrying the DNA of Brian Clough’s greatest teams. It opens up a conversation about Forest’s place in football history, back to back European Cups, and what it means to have that kind of pedigree stitched into a club’s identity.

From there they move through the 2005 Champions League run – the Chelsea semi-final that Graeme describes as the only time he has ever been genuinely scared at a football match – and then Istanbul. Two days after the final, Graeme found himself at a Kenny Dalglish charity night at the Grafton. A bin bag went round. He put his name on a fiver three or four times. His name came out. He won a Nike Total 90 Premier League ball signed by the entire Champions League squad. He brought it to the table.

Do the right things when no one’s watching

In the second half, Graeme talks about a career built entirely around one belief – that without people, you can’t do anything. From running a bookmakers as a community hub for older residents during his university years, to turning around a 100-staff engineering business during the 2008 recession and growing it 60% while the country was on its knees.

The through line in every chapter is the same. Do the right things when no one’s watching. Look after your people and they will look after you.

Jim asks him at the end whether football taught him any of that. His answer is worth the price of admission alone.

Watch on YouTube →

Also available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Football for Breakfast is presented by OSS Security. New episode every Tuesday morning.