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THERE IS NO prescription for football. It was 1969, my professional interest in football was over and I was happily continuing my role as primary and PE teacher when I was invited to join the coaching team at Largs by Roy Small, who was running the courses there. I was asked along with my present colleague, Frank Coulston, who was – and still is – an excellent coach. The staff at Largs included Eddie Turnbull, Aberdeen manager, Jimmy Bonthrone, who was then at East Fife, Wilson Humphries, then at St Mirren, Archie Robertson, the manager of Clyde, Willie Ormond, then in charge at St Johnstone, and Peter Rice, who was a former player with Hibs and became a lecturer at St Andrew’s College.

All those men I have just mentioned have been fine coaches in their own right. Everyone has different ideas – which is why I maintain that there is no prescription for football. It is something that I have kept in mind since then. I have had it as a belief throughout my coaching career. You have a philosophy of football that suits you and you stick to it. It is totally wrong to criticise someone else’s beliefs because what might work for one coach may not work for another – and vice versa! Flexibility has to be a highly important factor – you cannot be hide-bound to one system, one set of rules for set pieces in attack or defence.

All this was brought home to me once when I had a minor disagreement with the late Peter Rice, who was in charge of the course at this particular time. Peter had been No. 2 to Roy Small and, as Roy was away at this time, Peter was in charge. I was watching one of my coaches taking an excellent session. He was Eddie Thomson who later became coach of Australia after he had finished playing for Hearts and Aberdeen. Eddie was very successful with Australia and gave them a much higher profile on the international scene than they had previously had. When he left the job he became a coach in the J League. I have often wanted to be a fly on the wall at one of his sessions, just to see how the Japanese and other nationalities coped with his team talks. The last time I saw him they were still being delivered in one of the most pronounced Edinburgh accents you could ever wish to hear – I sometimes had difficulty in understanding him myself!

Eddie was coaching the use of a sweeper behind a back four. Peter came along and said, ‘What’s he doing, Craig?’

‘Well, you can see what he’s doing, Peter,’ I replied.

‘Surely he’s not using a sweeper behind the back four?’

‘He certainly is,’ I responded.

‘Well, you never do that!’ Peter said.

I rose to defend Eddie’s right to try his own methods. ‘I think that’s a bit of a sweeping statement, Peter.’ One thing led to another and Peter and I disagreed over it. Eddie’s idea was unusual but it was working for him – and it has since worked for Willie McLean and me when I was assistant manager at Motherwell. If we had a tricky away match we would use Eddie’s system to good effect. Peter felt that Eddie should fail his exam because it was an unrealistic system – but I strongly disagreed.

In the end, Eddie completed an excellent session and I passed him. Later, both Frank Coulston and I were dropped from the coaching staff at Largs. I think it was a direct result of my disagreeing with Peter, who said that he was going to use a pool of coaches instead of having the same people involved all the time. I don’t think anyone has been dropped since then, so I think I am probably correct in my assertion that it was all down to my backing Eddie.

I am sure that Peter, fine coach though he was, felt that there was a prescription for football and that if you used a sweeper it had to be behind a two- or three-man defence, and adopting any other system was unthinkable. Since then I have always kept an open mind while doing my own coaching thing. I have my own thoughts and systems but I am always prepared to have any aspect of my knowledge of the game improved by sensible suggestions. There is no set formula for anything, whether you are scoring goals or stopping them, and I defy anyone to show me a long-term success story involving anybody who is not prepared to adapt, adopt and try to improve.

While I was adding to my coaching experience I was working tirelessly with school and youth teams as well. I was also working to further my teaching career. When I finished my professional playing, the Open University was starting up and so I took a degree through that medium. I had been taking course after course for some time in my thirst for knowledge and qualifications, but there always seems to be a stigma attached to the role of a PE teacher – everyone thinks that you are an ignorant acrobat! People don’t seem to realise that the academic qualifications needed to get into a PE teaching course were a lot more stringent than those needed for a primary teaching course in those days. I knew from my father’s experience that qualifications were of the utmost importance if you were going to have a good career in teaching and, as with everything else, I did not see the point in getting involved with anything unless it was with a full commitment.

I thought I’d better get some academic respectability, so I took a BA degree through the Open University. I also did some additional courses that were relevant to my job – courses such as the development of reading, geography, and so on. Studying was becoming something of a hobby for me. I was really enjoying it and it provided me with something totally different from my PE and football coaching – which were taking up most of my time, of course.

As a result of all this – and possibly also because there was a shortage of teachers in Lanarkshire where I was working – I became deputy head teacher in Bellshill. Things seemed to move quite quickly because not long after that I became, for a short time, a head teacher in Uddingston, and then later applied for a post as lecturer at the Craigie College of Education 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 was to get into the opponent’s half and shoot. Because of his size, and the size of the goalmouth when compared to the lack of size of the goalkeeper, he would grab a handful of goals every time he played. You could get a jumbo jet to fly under the crossbar and over the young goalkeeper’s head, and Andy soon learned where to place his shot. He was a prized asset to us because he could score so easily but, because his size and ability gave him such an advantage over other boys of his own age, he effectively ruined the game each time he played. It wasn’t his fault, but it did show how inappropriate it was to have eleven-a-side matches in that primary age group. I tried to even the games a little by making arbitrary rules such as that he could only score with his head one day, or from outside the area on another. It succeeded in evening up the games and hopefully furthered his football education too.

While at Blantyre, I also ran the local Hamilton district schools side along with the local priest, Father Glachan. Between us we had the privilege of selecting the best boys from the local schools – and it would have been totally enjoyable but for the various parents who continually tried to influence our selection. The best example of this is provided in a series of award-winning short stories written by William McIlvanney. He wrote about the single parent watching her son playing football. Whereas the rest of the 21 players appear merely as a blur to that parent, her son remains in sharp focus throughout.

Because I was so busy with my school coaching, I gave up coaching seniors for a while, but I was still remembered in Dundee as being a player and a coach, and also as being semi-literate. As a result, DC Thomson, the well-known publishing company based in Dundee, got in touch with me with a view to my writing a column. They produced all manner of newspapers and magazines, ranging from the Sunday Post and other newspapers to the Weekly News, the Topical Times, the Beano and miscellaneous women’s and children’s publications and assorted journals.

I was asked if I would comment on one of the matches of the previous weekend every Monday in the Dundee Courier, and I was delighted to do so. Then I was asked if I would write actual match reports for the Sunday Post. I was no longer playing at this time, and I was thrilled to be involved in the game from a completely different angle. So, for the next eighteen months, I was a regular in the press box. It taught me a great deal. I was sometimes given one of the top games, but I was always getting First Division matches – remember that there was no Premier Division in those days.

Once again, I consider this period as part of my education. I was able to listen to the comments of the press men and join in with their discussions, which gave me a great insight into the way the press viewed things. As well as commenting on the match I used to write the introduction to the piece and learned that you have to make it brief, to the point, and interesting enough for the reader to continue through to the match report, rather than just flash-read the scorers. I quickly learned the value of those people who write the actual headlines in the newspapers.

Usually, your introduction is something that you think up during the second half of the game when you can see how the match is going. You may already have been given your introduction by goals, sendings-off or injuries. I was once at a game between Airdrie and Aberdeen and it was, arguably, the worst game of all time. It was 0–0 with a minute to go and I had been struggling to dream up my intro before finally settling on resorting to William Shakespeare and his famous work, Much Ado About Nothing. I had branded the game a bore with nothing to say for itself.

Not long before the final whistle, Drew Jarvie scored to break the deadlock – but my intro still held because the rest of the game was totally forgettable. I just added that Jarvie of Airdrie popped up to give us the only bright spot of the whole game. It was then that I realised the importance of those headline writers because, when the report appeared in the Sunday Post, the heading read ‘Jarvie – Merchant of Menace’ – totally in keeping with my Shakespearean intro.

I have often been amused by – or admired – newspaper headlines since then, although there have been times when I have been disgusted by the inaccuracies or innuendo contained in stories that are way off the mark – or headlines that are meant to sensationalise the unsensational.

Anyway, I learned the ways of the press box. I would hear the late John Begg, the famous freelance writer, say, ‘Who scored? Left leg or right leg? Who passed it to him? What time was that?’ It wasn’t that he didn’t watch the game, but he would be so busy telephoning constant reports to seven or eight newspapers that he didn’t have time for the details. The other reporters would shout him the answers to his questions. When a goal is scored these questions are usually flying around the press box so that everyone is in agreement – even if they all have it wrong! Nowadays there is more factual reporting because of TV monitors at most big games. I found also that it was easy to influence the reports if you just made a chance remark to someone near the end of a game. As an example, I might say, ‘Doug Houston is having some game for Dundee today. Some of his passes have been great.’ If you say it at the right time, when the reporters are considering which players have done well, you will almost certainly read the next day that the player you were touting ‘put on a great performance’.

Most managers co-operate with the press – but not all. I can remember being asked to get a statement on injuries from one manager who was fairly new to that particular job, and whose side was playing in Europe a few days later. I waited for an hour and ten minutes after the game only to be told to ‘F*** off’ by the manager when I asked him if he had any injury worries. He didn’t know who I was, and really it would have made no difference if he had. There is no need for anyone to be uncivil – after all, we all have a job to do. I made up my mind, then and there, that if ever I was in a similar situation I would not speak in that manner to any journalist who was just trying to do his job. As far as I am aware, I never have.

To get back to my job at the college in Ayr, part of my role in lecturing on primary education was to watch students teaching in schools. It meant that I was out quite a bit, and when you add to that all the work I was doing with football teams, it doesn’t take a genius to see that I was not at home very much. We had long holidays from the college, but I spent most of those involved in football coaching at some level or another. There was a lot of hard work done, but at various times of the year I would have a month off, which gave me the freedom to still be involved in football almost as a full-time occupation.

I have always liked to be busy all the time. I can’t stand having nothing to do. It was no different in my teaching days – or even in my childhood. If I wasn’t actively doing something, then I had to be thinking about things. During my time at Craigie College in Ayr, I would involve myself in football and golf – as well as catching up with all the latest paperwork and guidelines involved in my teaching profession. If there was an evening when I found that I was free I would have a game of golf – or dream up some new coaching idea to try out when next I got the chance.

The doctor had ordered me to stop playing football and I had done exactly as I had been told. I did not even take part in any of the training games I organised as part of the coaching work. If I kicked a ball at all, it was to demonstrate a point or just to pass it to someone who needed it for an exercise. I kept myself fit by taking part in the training and indulging myself in a bit of golf or swimming.

For all that, I could not stop thinking about the game. I was not bitter about the way my career had ended, and I was certainly grateful for the successes I had enjoyed during my all-too-short playing years, but it was frustrating not to be involved at the highest level of the game. I felt that I’d had something to offer and had been denied the chance of finding out whether or not I was right.

I had done what the doctor ordered and that was that. But then came the day when I was asked if I would like to become part-time assistant to Willie McLean, who was then manager of Motherwell, having taken over from Ian St John.

Would I?

Now, that really was just what the doctor ordered!