Craig Brown - The Game of My Life. Craig Brown
Jock admitted that I had put him off but then told me that he felt that at this stage in his career a new challenge would be rejuvenating for him. Not long after our phone conversation he contacted Celtic and accepted their offer. Although Jock is no longer in that post his regard for Celtic FC remains undiminished and he will not hear a word against his former employers.
I think the press and the public have grown to realise that there was no reciprocal influence whatsoever, any more than there was when he had to interview me for the BBC once in his capacity as a football commentator.
Those are my brothers and, of course, I’m very proud of both of them.
All this was still a long way off for a young Rangers player and third choice for the left half position at Ibrox. Billy Stevenson was first choice for my position and Stan Anderson, my old friend, was second. Then, after I had been at Ibrox for about eighteen months, Rangers signed another player with whom I had to compete for the No. 6 shirt. He was to become the most famous of them all, but he certainly didn’t look like the part when he and I first shook hands. Anyone who remembers his first day at Ibrox will tell you that he was a very nervous young man. When he and I said hello, little did I know that I was meeting a legend in the making – the one and only Jim Baxter.
JIM BAXTER who sadly died became one of Scotland’s biggest-ever stars, and by coincidence I was the first player he met when he arrived at Ibrox. I was getting treatment for the first of many knee injuries and that is why I was there when Jim arrived. It was during the summer of 1960, and I met him for the first time when the manager, Scot Symon, was showing him around the Glasgow Rangers’ stadium.
Jim was noticeably nervous, and when Scot left him with me in the treatment room we had quite a long chat. He had just joined Rangers from Raith Rovers for £17,500, which was quite a lot of money in those days, especially for a club like Raith. They had paid £200 when he had first joined them a few years earlier, and he had certainly become something of a sensation. His displays included a great game against Rangers in 1958 which had resulted in a shock 3–1 win for Raith. Rangers began tracking him after that and eventually they got their man.
On the pitch, Jim Baxter was supremely confident, but that first day at Ibrox he showed me another side of his character, a side that very few people know. I remember him saying to someone else a bit later on that he had felt like a country yokel at the time of his arrival. He later offered this explanation: ‘I know that I’ve been called arrogant and I can’t help what people say. I know that’s probably how I have looked. But when I was eighteen I was called up to play for the Scotland Under-23 side against Wales at Tynecastle. I was with Raith then and it was a big day for me. I travelled to Edinburgh to meet up with everyone else. I was feeling quite pleased with myself until I saw the other lads. They all looked really something, very sharp and exactly as professional footballers should look. I felt out of place … a nobody.
‘A couple of kids asked me for my autograph and then I saw them looking at their books to see who I was. That was the day when I decided that everyone would know who I was. I knew I could play, but I had to make sure that everyone else knew too. But I never tried anything that I didn’t know I could achieve.’
The legend of Jim Baxter has been told many times. He was undoubtedly a brilliant player, and one of the greatest to wear the Rangers and Scotland shirts. When we reported for pre-season training it seemed natural that his peg should be next to mine – partly because the pegs were arranged in alphabetical order, but also because we already knew each other. As the season wore on, players changed their pegs to be near their best pals, but Baxter and Brown always remained together. We became good friends. I discovered that inside that flamboyant and brash exterior was a very warm human being.
Whenever we chance to meet, I always got the best of greetings and hospitality from Jim Baxter, and I always tried to reciprocate. I had the marvellous privilege of watching him play for Rangers and to see at close-hand the magnificent talent that he had. He made an instant impact in the first team. The Scottish League Championship was won for the 32nd time, the League Cup was also won, and the Scottish Cup was only just lost, thanks to a battling Motherwell side. Rangers also took part in the inaugural European Cup Winners’ Cup competition, and reached the final in which they faced a cynical Fiorentina side. As it happened, Fiorentina did win by the odd goal, a wonder strike by Kurt Hamrin, a Swedish international. You can see from all this that Jim Baxter’s first season at Ibrox was exciting to say the least.
While all this was going on I was becoming even more anonymous. My knee injury, which at first appeared to be just an annoyance, was beginning to look a little more serious. I kept on getting fluid on the joint. I was ordered to keep on working at strengthening the quadriceps, which I did, but I still continued to get the fluid problem. When I trained with Rangers it appeared, and when I was working on my PE course it appeared – and it was beginning to become a bit of a worry.
I was not a very important player at the time and so I did not receive the urgency of treatment that might have helped me to recover a lot more quickly – and possibly permanently. It is simply the way of things in football, not just then but now as well. If I had been a first-team player, I would have received the care and attention that was due to my status, but I was not and I understood my situation perfectly. Many a player has been told, ‘Go on, lad, get yourself sorted!’
David Kinnear was an excellent remedial gymnast, but he was not a qualified physiotherapist and so it was not his fault. My knee problem refused to respond, and so my chances of first-team football became limited.
It didn’t stop me playing, but I did have to live with this knee problem, which kept niggling at me incessantly. I was quickly beginning to realise that, unless something very dramatic happened, my career was going in one direction only – and it wasn’t up. Everyone tried to be encouraging, but I had this awful feeling that my dreams of winning the championship and playing in Europe as a regular first-team player at Rangers were destined to end in tatters.
Before I signed for Rangers, one of the other teams that tried to take me on board was Third Lanark – now defunct, but regarded then with great affection by everyone interested in Scottish football. Their manager at that time was Bob Shankly, brother of the great Bill Shankly. He was a fine man but, at the time, I was dazzled by the Ibrox marble staircase and the smooth, gentlemanly encouragement of Scot Symon – not to mention being well aware of the fact that wearing a Rangers shirt could earn me more status and a little more money.
However, Bob Shankly did not forget me and, when he left Third Lanark, he became manager of Dundee. He and his brother Bill were not only great managers but also took a very personal interest in just about everyone who was playing the game, no matter who they were playing for. It had not escaped Bob Shankly’s notice that I was not getting first-team football for Rangers, and so he asked them if they would transfer me to Dundee.
I was extremely surprised when Bob Shankly was turned down by Rangers. My surprise was all the greater because Rangers at that time were certainly not short of players and I was not among the top ones. I felt that I did not figure very highly on their list of priorities, and so I fully expected them to be only too glad to unload me. I don’t know who was the more surprised, Bob Shankly or myself, when they said they were going to keep me.
After his initial surprise, Bob asked if it would be possible for me to join his club on loan. This time Rangers were in agreement, and I didn’t mind at all. I didn’t really want to leave the Rangers set-up for one minute – but I was also eager to stop my career falling into stagnation. Since it was for a loan spell only, there was no danger that I couldn’t return to Ibrox, and so, in October 1960, I became a temporary Dundee player.
I hadn’t been at Dundee for very long – in fact I’d played just a few reserve games – when my knee began to be troublesome again. Lawrie Smith was the physiotherapist