Craig Brown - The Game of My Life. Craig Brown
matches, Kilmarnock Amateurs, training with the big clubs and the internationals too. It was a lesson to me that you can have too much of a good thing. I don’t think it was good for me to have so many physical demands placed on my body. I believe that the same thing applies today. A boy who is still developing physically should not have his body overtaxed by the rigours of too much competitive football. No, I’m not one of those people who say that the competition should be taken out of youth football – I think that competition is very necessary – but you should keep a balance. Sadly, I feel that little has changed over the years, and that many of today’s youngsters are often overworked with competitive games.
I eventually joined Rangers at the age of seventeen. The newspaper headline at the time read ‘Rangers sign the boy they all wanted’. It was a fact that there were quite a few clubs in the frame for me.
Rangers did not have a youth team as such, but would farm out youngsters to clubs in the Scottish junior leagues where they could gain some experience against semi-professionals. I was sent to Coltness United and was at the same level as Billy McNeill, who was playing for Blantyre Victoria. Our careers seemed to be moving in parallel – if anything I had the edge because I was also later picked for the Scottish Junior squad.
At this time, in 1958, I was concentrating on playing football and golf, and I didn’t really know much about what else was going on. My father did all my talking for me, and he often neglected to tell me everything because he didn’t want me distracted from developing my game. Had I known that there were clubs on both sides of the border chasing after me, it could well have gone to my head.
In the Daily Mirror of 15 July 1958, Jimmy Stevenson wrote:
‘The future of a teenage Scot who has been the rage of soccer scouts for a year was settled yesterday. Craig Brown signed for Rangers.’ He also quoted Bob Jackson, a top scout and former Portsmouth manager, as saying: ‘Whoever gets the lad gets the best proposition I’ve seen in years.’
My father was well respected in the sports world because of his rise through the academic world and because he talked a lot of sense. He had helped and guided me since childhood, and I had no reason to think that he would not be the best person to act as my personal guide through the rest of my career. I listened to what everyone had to say, but it was my father’s words that really counted. As he told the Evening Citizen a month after I had joined Rangers, ‘Craig has been brought up in an atmosphere of football. He has played in the garden with a ball at his feet since he could toddle.’
I continued to play in the garden with a ball at my feet – and on my head as well. I knew that there was always room for improvement and, even though I was training and playing matches all the time, I still wanted to put in extra work at home. One of my exercises was to take the dining-room chairs out into the garden and line them up as obstacles, then I would slalom my way through them with the ball at my feet and repeat the exercise whilst heading the ball.
I continued my studies at Hamilton Academy and quite fancied my chances of gaining a BSc degree in engineering when I left school. At 5 feet 7½ inches and 10 stone 2 pounds, I also wanted to build myself up a bit, and so I began to do some labouring work as a steel bender’s labourer at Costain Concrete works in Newmains. I was probably burning the candle at both ends, but not in the same way that many youngsters do today. All my activities were to do with my career. My efforts finally gained me a ticking-off! The Rangers manager, Scot Symon, called me to one side and cautioned me against doing too much. I was playing three times a week and training at least once every day.
‘You need to take it a little easier. There’s such a thing as overdoing it – even in football,’ said Mr Symon. He did have a twinkle in his eye as he said it and so I knew that I wasn’t really being told off but was being offered some genuine advice. It was a valuable lesson – and it is one that I pass on to youngsters today if I feel that it is appropriate. When the newspapers heard of my ‘ticking-off’ they immediately began drawing parallels with Pelé, who had been told exactly the same thing by his national coach. Pelé was big news at the time because of the 1958 World Cup, and I was honoured to be considered worthy of being mentioned in the same breath. I didn’t take the comparison too seriously, though – I was already learning that you should have a pinch of salt with your newspaper, even without the fish and chips inside!
As things progressed I was selected for the Scottish Junior squad to play against the Irish Junior side – which was quite an achievement for a youngster of my age. One of my proudest possessions is the cap I earned for that match. I keep it at my house and always get a thrill when I look at it.
When I went to Ibrox I found myself amongst players I had only ever heard of. They were big stars and I was quite overawed to be mixing with them – players like Eric Caldow, the late Alex Scott, Bobby Shearer, Ralph Brand, Jimmy Millar, Billy Stevenson, and the other heroes of Glasgow Rangers. These men were like gods to the fans, and to me. They were people whom I had read about and talked about – but never, ever contemplated as becoming my teammates.
After a year with Coltness I was called up to Ibrox as a full-timer. My studies for my BSc were shelved and I was ready to see what the journey on the magic carpet of football was going to be like. I was put into the reserve squad – and even there I was playing alongside great players like Sammy Baird, Johnny Hubbard, Ian McColl, Billy Ritchie, John Queen, John Currie, Max Murray and others. Most were in the twilight of their careers, but they were still great players and big stars nevertheless. The reserves had their own manager, Bob McPhail, who was legendary throughout Scotland as a pre-war international. Assisting Bob was Joe Craven and, between them, they kept a happy and successful squad going strong. It was a very happy time for me because I was wearing the shirt of one of the greatest clubs in the history of the game and learning something from my coaches every day. With all those great players around me I felt that everything was going brilliantly for me. I was playing football all the time and I couldn’t have wished for life to be any better.
At a reserve game between Rangers and Celtic in 1997 there was a crowd of 33,000. In the back end of the 1950s we could expect crowds of 20,000-plus for reserves Old Firm clashes, and almost the same for all the other fixtures. As a result, there was never any disgrace in being listed among the reserves every week.
I was quick to learn that star footballers are only human after all. Sometimes the stars of stage, screen and sport can seem to be a race apart and nothing like the rest of us. However, as I became friendly with the internationals at Ibrox, I found them all easy to get on with. We talked about all the normal things of life – what sort of pet dog this one had, which horse to back at Newmarket, and so on. I was included in all these conversations about everyday matters and soon settled in.
There were, of course, little cliques at Ibrox – as there have always been at every club. Because I lived in Hamilton I fell into the clique of players who lived near me, among them Eric Caldow, Willie Telfer, Doug Baillie, Stan Anderson and Bobby Shearer, the captain. We also used to pick up Davy Wilson on the way in – he stayed in Cambuslang. We all travelled in from Hamilton to train at Ibrox, which brought us together in all sorts of ways.
These were happy days for me at Ibrox with the company I was keeping, my playing progress and my golf. I was also making progress on another front. I’ve already mentioned giving up on my engineering course, but I did switch to taking a PE course at Jordanhill, because it was more in keeping with my footballing career.
There was an odd atmosphere at Jordanhill in those days. There were strict doctrines like never showing that you were injured, never allowing an opponent to know that you were hurt. Trainers were never allowed on to the football pitch to attend the injured. There were no substitutes so you were expected to play on regardless. I’m sure that only broken legs, broken necks or death were regarded as acceptable reasons for not completing the full 90 minutes. That wasn’t the end of the discipline – everything from your boots to the rest of your kit had to be kept scrupulously clean, and it was your responsibility. Everything took place with military precision.
Quite a few professional players were taking courses at Jordanhill at that time. Graham Leggat was one, and he was a fair influence on me. He played for Aberdeen and then Fulham. When I was in my final year