Scott Brown: Celtic captain on awards, fans and the men who saved his career
- Published
Scott Brown has flourished under Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers
There's a curiosity about Scott Brown's season that tickles him, a little fact that appeals to his self-mocking sense of humour.
"I might be the only guy to win player of the year and not get a goal or an assist," he says. "I've been playing in the league for 16 seasons and I've scored in every one of them except this one.
"Apparently, I've gone 72 games without a goal. Such a bad stat, that. I should have thought of this years ago, you know. Don't score, don't create, don't get too far forward and you end up winning all these prizes. Brilliant."
He's not the only player to win PFA Scotland's major gong without hitting the net, but he's the first since goalkeeper Andy Goram a quarter of a century ago.
He has two more shots at breaking his duck - Aberdeen on Sunday and Motherwell in the Scottish Cup final next Saturday, a game in which Celtic can rewrite more history by completing back-to-back trebles. Or three more shots if you count his testimonial against Republic of Ireland at Celtic Park the day after the cup final.
Celtic have not needed to be outstanding all season. They've won two trophies while only rarely producing their best stuff. They've motored along in third gear for the most part. Not Brown, though. Brown has been relentless pretty much all the way through. He's won so many individual honours in the past few weeks that it's hard to keep track of them all. At 32, and soon-to-be 33, he's still the rock of Celtic Park.
It seems like a good time to reflect. "When I first got made captain I didn't understand how much pressure was involved, how big it is," he says. "Tony [Mowbray] gave it to me. It was heads or tails between me and somebody else and somehow I won. A lot of people doubted me at the time. I probably doubted myself quite a lot as well, but I've grown into the role. It's an honour. I live it 24 hours a day."
It's not all been sunshine and roses. He takes us back to May 2016 and a 7-0 win over Motherwell in Glasgow in Ronny Deila's last match as Celtic manager. Brown was injured. Two games before, he did his hamstring. Two games before that he lost a Scottish Cup semi-final against Rangers on penalties. He was about to turn 30 and was in a bad place.
"At the end of that season I was thinking to myself, 'how many more times am I going to play in front of 60,000 fans?' I'd lost the winning mentality, I'd lost that driving force," he explains. "I found it hard to keep up with the young ones and keep going in games for 60, 70, 80 minutes.
"The first half of matches was not a problem. I could cruise through that, but in the second half, when it hit that 70-minute mark, I slowly started to drop and I got deeper and deeper and deeper and so did the whole team. Most of the lads were in the same boat as me, but people noticed me more than others, which is quite right because I was captain of the club and I was supposed to be leading by example."
Brown revealed Gordon Strachan "had the chat" with him and helped him reinvent himself
He tells a story about how it changed. It was the end of that 2015-16 season and Brown was at home in Edinburgh and getting ready for a night out in Glasgow with his team-mates.
"Gordon [Strachan, then Scotland manager] phoned me and it was one of those calls where you look at the screen of the mobile and go, 'don't want to answer that'," Brown recalls. "I picked up and he said, 'Broonie, are you in the house?' I was like, 'Aye'.
"He said, 'I'm in Edinburgh seeing my mum and I'm coming to see you'. 'No worries, gaffer, cool'. He arrives and I tell him I'm just going through to Glasgow to meet up with the lads. He said, 'I'll take you through'. I said, 'I have a taxi coming'. 'No, no, I'll take you through'.
"So we get in the car and he says, 'what's up with you?' He was being deadly serious. 'You finished playing or what? You don't look sharp, you don't look fit, are you injured?' He gave me the chat. 'Thirty-year-old doesn't mean you're finished. Thirty means you go and reinvent yourself and come back as something else. You love the game and want to be a part of it, so go away and get yourself right'.
"Then Brendan [Rodgers] got appointed [at Celtic] and everybody knows I sat in his house and we had a deep conversation. He said he still wanted me as captain and asked how long I thought I had left in me and I said, 'the way I'm feeling? Two seasons, tops'.
"Two years later I'm still standing here and probably feeling as fit as I've ever felt and I'm winning awards for not scoring goals. If it wasn't for those two managers, who have been fantastic to me, I probably wouldn't be playing here now."
In the past 20 years it's hard to recall another Scottish footballer who has been talked about as much as Brown. Lauded and loathed, celebrated and denounced, he has been a one-man drama, a guy that fans of other clubs love to hate while no doubt wishing, but not out loud, they had him in their ranks.
"I enjoy opposition fans hating me," he says. "It pushes me on to do better, to go and win a battle in the middle of the park, to dominate somebody I'm playing against. I think that's what I thrive off more than anything. Some fans hate me, some love me. I can live with it, whatever it is.
"The good thing is that I stay in Edinburgh. I stay way out of the goldfish bowl. I think that's the best thing for my career, to stay away. Half of them love you, half of them hate you. Whether you're out for a meal or out with the lads there are people wanting to video you, hoping that you slip up and if you do slip there's always somebody there to catch it on camera. Edinburgh is more chilled out."
Steven Gerrard is about to enter this glorious footballing world. Where was Brown when he heard the news that the Liverpool icon had been confirmed as the new Rangers manager? "I couldn't tell you," Brown replies. "Somebody texted me, I think. He was a top quality player, an absolute legend of Liverpool. It's an opportunity for him now to come to Glasgow and see what the goldfish bowl is really like."
Brown says Gerrard will sample the Glasgow goldfish bowl once he takes over at Rangers
He has words, too, for his old mate, Neil Lennon, the man who sat him down when he first arrived at Celtic and told him a few things about the responsibility that came with the jersey. Brown has watched the story unfolding at his old club, Hibernian. The rise from the Championship, the creation of an exciting team, the bid, ultimately foiled, for second place in their first season back in the Premiership.
And now, the turbulence of Lennon's comments after the Edinburgh derby when he said he might have to leave the club if they don't match his ambition. "I don't think anybody could have done the job Lenny has done," insists Brown. "Footballing-wise, Hibs have been the best we've played against in Scotland this season. They've shown it over and over again.
"John [McGinn] has been my toughest opponent in the league. The way he gets his body in and uses it so well. That's part of my game too. He's the driving force behind Hibs and Lenny has improved him as a player. Here's hoping Lenny stays, but if he feels it's time to leave then nobody knows better than himself."
Celtic have already won the League Cup and Premiership this term and face Motherwell in the Scottish Cup final
Another cup final beckons for Brown. Another trophy, unless Motherwell can pull off a massive shock. It would be his fourth Scottish Cup to go along with his five League Cups (one with Hibs) and his eight Premiership titles.
The passing of time might have have changed him as a player, from his box-to-box days to what he is now, a sentry guard who sits in front of the back four "mopping up and letting the lads go and enjoy themselves up the park".
What remains the same is the devilment and the pride and the pursuit of trophies. That, you sense, will be a constant until the day he finally calls it a day.
He jokes that it'll be 10 years before he makes that decision.
"There's ages left in me," he adds. "To be fair, I'm not doing too bad for a fella who can't shoot."