Craig Brown - The Game of My Life. Craig Brown
in Ayr, now the Craigie Campus of Paisley University.
This prompted a move from my home in Hamilton where I had lived since I was married to Johan at the age of 24. So we moved to Prestwick and started a new kind of life in Ayrshire. My relationship with football was still continuing with me managing and coaching football teams. This early experience has proved invaluable to me in my current job as the Director of Football Development for the Scottish Football Association. For example, when I was at the Macalpine School in Dundee, while I was still playing, I ran three teams, which was quite an undertaking. I did get help from some of my Dundee playing colleagues, in particular from Terry Christie, who is now manager of Alloa Athletic Football Club and also rector of Musselburgh Grammar School. Doug Houston, my room-mate in digs, Ian Ure and Tommy Mackle all helped me with the school, so I had my own coaching team even in those days. I was determined to give as many youngsters as possible a taste of the enjoyment of playing football.
I often wish that I had known and realised the value then of the seven-a-side games and mini-festivals that we now encourage youngsters to play. In those days it was all eleven-a-side games. In the playground little has changed. The youngsters still like to be identified with their favourite teams and players, just as they did when I was a schoolboy myself. Lads love to get the chance to wear their team’s shirt – and that means the school shirt as well as their favourite club’s.
Today, we at the Scottish Football Association want everyone, girls as well as boys, to take part in small-sided football while they are still under twelve, as we feel that it is a much better introduction to the game during those developing years. We also promote mixed soccer because the game is such a good recreation for everyone. Women’s football in Scotland, inspired by our Dutch national coach, Vera Pauw, who, as well as being an accomplished coach, played 87 times for her country, is really taking off, and we have no wish to do anything other than encourage it in Scotland. Just as in men’s football, you cannot be too young to learn the basics of how to kick a ball and to get some healthy exercise from doing it at the same time.
During my teaching days in Dundee, the rivalry between the two local sides – Dundee and Dundee United – was as keen as ever and, in the classroom after a local derby, there was much banter between the supporters of the two sides. In those days Dundee was the stronger and more successful of the two sides but, in recent years, the pendulum has swung the other way – mostly because of the great effort put in by Jim McLean, and recently by Alex Smith.
I can remember walking along the corridor at the Macalpine School on one occasion. I was talking to another teacher, Bill Young, at the time, when a parent appeared at the end of the corridor. He looked at me and said, ‘Are you Craig Brown?’
I thought that he was about to congratulate me on our team’s performance the day before, so I smiled and said, ‘Yes, that’s me.’ With that this huge guy hit me with a right uppercut and down I went. I was pretty fit and not short of aggression myself in those days, but he had taken me by surprise. I didn’t leave it at that, though. I caught hold of him, wrestled him to the ground and started to repay the ‘compliment’ – which meant that quite a nasty fight ensued in the foyer of the school. By this time the head teacher had arrived on the scene along with all the cleaners and various other people.
The head teacher, Mr Baxter, told the man that if he wanted to interview any of his staff he should see him first. The man told the head teacher exactly what he thought of him and then threw him along the corridor. Once again chaos broke out until we were able to restrain the man. It transpired that he was the father of a boy to whom I had administered some corporal punishment earlier in the day. I had caught the boy hitting another lad across the face with the end of a climbing rope when they were supposed to be packing away the PE equipment, so I dealt him the appropriate punishment of the time – the belt!
It was a measure of my inexperience that I had punished the boy at the end of the day. It was the first time I had administered the belt, which was an acceptable part of school life in those days. The boy went home with his hand stinging. His father had been working in the fields collecting potatoes, casual work which was common in the area at the time. The workers were paid cash in hand at the end of the day and invariably spent it much more quickly than they had earned it, with the local hostelries proving to be the ultimate winners.
By the time this guy had met his son he was already half cut and, when he heard that it was Craig Brown who had punished his lad, it was like a red rag to a bull – because this guy was a Dundee United supporter and there was no way that he was going to let a Dundee player get away with such a thing. Along he came to remonstrate with me. Eventually he managed to struggle free and started to run away, all the time pointing at me and shouting, ‘I’ve not finished with you.’
I had to report the matter to my manager, Bob Shankly. He listened patiently while I told him the story, then he took a long, hard look at the bruise under my eye.
‘Is that what he did to you, son?’
‘Yes, boss, I wasn’t expecting it,’ I replied.
‘What did you do to him? I’ll tell you this – nobody messes with any of my players like that!’
His concern was not for the ignominy that might be brought upon the club by the incident but the fact that one of his players at least gave as good as he got. That was the Shankly philosophy. The whole episode was soon forgotten and I heard no more about it until months later when I went into my digs one day and one of my teammates was reading the evening newspaper. The headlines read ‘Dundee Player Assaulted’. It was Ian Ure, the avid newspaper reader, who was sitting with the paper, so I asked, ‘Who’s that, Ian?’
He laughed and replied, ‘It’s you!’
The story was all about the court case that had followed the incident. Because the guy had pleaded guilty I had not been called to give evidence – in fact, I didn’t even know that there was to be court action. He was fined £10 – a significant figure because it comprised £6 for hitting Mr Baxter, the head teacher, and £4 for assaulting me. It wasn’t the severity of the assault which counted, it was the rank of the person who had been attacked!
The following Saturday we were playing St Mirren and I was fouled by one of their players. As I was getting up from the ground I heard a voice in the enclosure shout, ‘Go on, Brown, get your strap out!’ The supporters never miss a trick!
It didn’t do me any harm in the educational world because, in those days, corporal punishment was the accepted thing and, although I didn’t condone it, I followed instructions and, on that particular occasion – as well as on very rare others – I used it, albeit very sparingly.
My time as a teacher, and in particular at the Macalpine School, taught me a lot about the great enthusiasm in Scotland for playing games and for football. When I moved to Lanarkshire I also ran the school teams. At Blantyre I had a very good football team, and also a very fine gymnastics display team of which I was very proud. Our main rivals were envious of our facilities and the way we were turned out for all our sporting activities – a reflection on our head teacher, who was not only a great educationalist but also extremely keen on the recreational aspects of school life. His name was Mr David Crawford, a wonderful man who died early this year. With him and our janitor, Mr John Baird, I had two very strong allies in providing the best for the youngsters at the school. We tried to encourage them in sport as well as in every aspect of education.
I must have had a charmed life as a teacher because when I went to Bellshill, to the Belvedere School, I had enthusiastic support from the head teacher and the rest of the staff. We excelled in football, swimming and gymnastics and had some great individuals. One of my pupils at that primary school was not only in my football team but also in the class of which I was appointed teacher. He went on to become a top player and in 1979 was named Scottish Footballer of the Year. You know him as Andy Ritchie, and his career spanned Celtic, Greenock Morton and eventually Motherwell. He was impressive even as a boy – a very big lad who was obviously destined for an exciting career in football.
Andy Ritchie was a prime example of the argument against eleven-a-side football on big pitches for young kids. All Andy had to do