On the eve of Scotland’s participation in Euro 2024, we take a moment to remember Craig Brown.

The last man to lead Scotland to a major tournament abroad, he also had to deal with the opening game of the tournament. A few years ago Craig spoke to the AFC programme about his experiences as national team boss. 

 When it comes to Scotland’s national side, there’s every reason to suggest that Craig Brown is the biggest figure in its coaching history. Working as assistant to both Sir Alex Ferguson and Andy Roxburgh at the 1986 and 1990 World Cups and the 1992 European Championships, when he replaced Roxburgh at the helm in 1993, he went on to see Scotland qualify for Euro ’96 in England and the World Cup of 1998. Speaking in 2014, Craig had plenty of memories of leading his country into that tournament in France …

“Be careful what you wish for” is an adage that football fans with an inky fetish would do well to have tattooed on their forearm, for while the thought of change always seems to hold so much promise of a brave new world, the reality can very often turn sour.

Take the case of the Scottish nation. Once upon a time, they were regular diners at the groaning table of the World Cup, barely ever failing to RSVP when the biannual beanfeasts came around. But in the 21^st century? The Tartan Army has largely taken their summer holidays at home until this year under Steve Clarke.

Over the course of two decades, Scotland’s supporters have had time to reflect upon a golden age that took them all the way from 1974 to 1998, an era that came to its conclusion in a World Cup that the Scots had the privilege to open – not that you’d have been wise putting it that way to their then manager Craig Brown.

“The opening ceremony is a challenge, it really is. There are so many things going on before your game, obviously the stadium, the pitch, is being used for the ceremony, so you can’t get into your work, players can’t warm up properly.

“They had an indoor area which was ok, but it isn’t the same as getting out on the pitch, getting a feel for it, for the stadium, for the atmosphere, and you’re just waiting for it all to be over so you can get on and do your job, so it does contribute to a few additional nerves I’d say.

“I’m certainly not blaming that because both sides go through it, but we lost a goal early on, which was unlike us, just four minutes in, and it came from a corner which was very unlike us too. It wasn’t a clean header, but it went in and to find yourself a goal down to Brazil, the holders, after four minutes is the last thing you want.

“Nobody can say for definite, and I’m not looking for excuses, but if we’d had a proper warm up, it might have helped. We took a good deal of pride in our warm up, we prepared thoroughly, physically and mentally and we were always switched on right from the start of games.”

We’ll return to that game with Brazil later, but simply to make it to France ’98, Scotland were required to traverse a new qualification landscape that had gradually taken shape through the 1990s after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

“We were in a qualification group that included Austria and Sweden, along with the newer nations of Latvia, Estonia and Belarus who were all something of an unknown quantity in international terms at that stage following the break up of the Soviet Union.

“When I began in international football, the Soviet Union had a population of something like 250 million people and so clearly they were always viewed as a football powerhouse. But around 1993, that became 15 federations with five of them playing in Asia, the rest in Europe. I think Russia still had a population of around 150 million, with the other 100 million split across the other nations, which still left some major countries, certainly by our standards – I think Latvia is around twice the size of Scotland for example.

“Now, because they were new nations, they prioritised sport as a method of finding an identity in the world and making people aware of their existence, so they put huge resources into the game of football in particular. For more established countries like ourselves, that posed a problem not just on the field but away from it, because the uninitiated supporters and a sizeable section of the press would talk about, “It’s only Latvia, it’s only Estonia”. They would treat them very lightly because they were new names on the world football scene, countries with no tradition under their own steam. But the fact of the matter was that they were far better than folk imagined, in every sense.

“Fortunately, the players were very well clued up on it and they approached each game in the right frame of mind, there was no complacency or anything of that nature. Ultimately, it was a very strong campaign for us, we conceded only three goals in ten games, lost just once and ultimately we qualified automatically as the best runners up across the nine UEFA groups, ahead of the likes of Italy, Belgium and Russia who all had to go into the play-offs. We’d had a similar qualification for Euro ’96, conceding just three, so to let in only six goals across two qualifying campaigns, then just two more in Euro ‘96 itself, for a country like Scotland, that was a laudable achievement.

“We were in a good frame of mind when qualification started because although we didn’t make it through the group stage, we missed out only on goals scored to the Netherlands who we had drawn with. We beat Switzerland – who had qualified under Roy Hodgson before he left them – and lost to England, though we were a little unfortunate in that one. We had enjoyed a period of consistent selection and I always felt that consistent results come from consistent selection. We had kept a similar team together over two or three years, everyone was well drilled, knew their job and knew their value.’

While Scotland’s football team was in good nick going into qualifying, the same could not be said of the national stadium, Hampden Park. The giant footballing bowl had long since reached the end of its natural life and following the catalogue of stadium disasters that disfigured the 1980s, the decision to rebuild it had finally been taken. For World Cup qualification, it was out of commission.

“The anomaly for that qualification was that we had no national stadium and therefore we had to take games around the country to different stadia in different cities, though we obviously also played at Ibrox and at Celtic Park. In some respects, that was helpful because we created very strong atmospheres, most notably at Celtic Park because it’s a much tighter stadium than the old Hampden, and I felt that intimidated nations such as Latvia.

“We played Estonia at Rugby Park and then Belarus at Pittodrie and I do like the idea of taking the national team out to the nation. With less attractive countries such as those as visitors, there was always a question of whether we could get supporters to come and fill a place like Ibrox, but by going to Kilmarnock and Aberdeen, it pretty much guaranteed that we would have full houses and again, that intimidated those two countries I felt.

“Of course, you would always rather play at the national stadium – and fill it! – but in the circumstances we faced at the time, I felt we made good decisions as to who we played where. Latvia was the final fixture and we chose to take that to Celtic Park because of the atmosphere and the place was duly packed that night, which helped us enormously.

“Looking back, the key game was the 1-0 home win over Sweden when Jim Leighton gave a superb performance for us. Jim is a Scotland legend of course, he played 91 games for his country and posted 45 clean sheets which is some record by any standards. He’s not playing in goal for Italy or Germany, he did that with Scotland, and so that is a quite remarkable statistic.

“Gary McAllister missed that game against Sweden, which was a heavy blow for us because Gary was a very influential member of the team. He was suspended for that game, as a result of what had happened in Estonia when the game was not played – that had been the game he was scheduled to miss, and so the suspension carried over.”

And what happened in Estonia? After training in the Kadrioru Staium in Tallinn the night before the game, Scotland found the floodlights to be inadequate and lodged a protest with FIFA. As a result, the kick-off time was brought forward from 6.45pm to 3pm local time, which displeased the local association no end, not least because of a potential loss in television money – it always comes back to that doesn’t it? On the day, Scotland turned up for the 3pm kick-off, John Collins rolled the ball forward off the centre spot and the referee then immediately abandoned the game. Why? Because Estonia hadn’t shown up.

“We felt bitterly aggrieved over what had happened in Estonia,” recalls Brown. “The match delegate in Estonia told us that we should turn up, kick off and if Estonia were not there, we would get the points. We did everything we were told and yet we were asked to replay the game. In my opinion, that was a mistake from FIFA. They should have been stronger and made it clear that Estonia had failed to fulfil a fixture and needed to face the consequences of that.

“Estonia wanted the game to be replayed, which it should never have been, but ultimately they got their way, albeit at a neutral venue. All of those eastern bloc countries tend to vote together and so when issues come to a vote – or even threaten to – there are nine former Soviet nations all voting as one. It means they are quite powerful because they all stick together. I think that may have been in the minds of the authorities later on.

“Going back to the game itself, it was disappointing for us and for the supporters, though I must say, from all of the reports that we heard, the Tartan Army loved going to Tallinn because there were plenty of attractions there shall we say – the drink was only one of them! Of course though, it was very costly for them to get there and in that sense, it was money wasted because they didn’t get to see the team play. They maintained their good humour though and in the stadium, they sang, “There’s only one team in Tallinn!”

“Then, when we were ordered to replay it, that game was played on neutral ground in Monaco, which as everyone knows, is not a cheap place to visit. The unfairness of that whole situation still rankles with me because I genuinely believe that if you have a match delegate, then he is in charge of proceedings and he should be given the jurisdiction to carry out that responsibility. He set the time for kick-off given the problems with the floodlights there and once he did that, you have an obligation to conform to that.

“In choosing to replay the game, the authority of match delegates everywhere was undermined. We had already been required to stay there an extra 24 hours because of what had gone on, which was very unpopular with the players’ clubs, because they had games that weekend, and then we had to fit another game into the calendar, so it was very disappointing all round. I have to say I was surprised because in general, I have great respect for FIFA, but on that occasion, their decision making was poor.

“Purely looking at the football rather than the rights and wrongs of it, when we were due to play in Estonia, we had won 2-0 in Latvia the previous weekend and we were very confident of winning that game too. There was the usual break in international games after November and when we played them in Monaco in February, you are starting again to a certain extent.  I’ll not deny that we should have done better in Monaco, the 0-0 draw was disappointing. It was a big, wide open pitch, we had big Duncan Ferguson playing up front, but still we didn’t manage to get a goal. That could have been costly to us in terms of the qualification.

“That blank was rare for us because we scored a number of goals in the group and Kevin Gallacher in particular was in excellent form for us. At the time, he was doing very well in England in the Premier League and he was full of confidence. The best thing that happened to Kevin was the change in the offside law which made it that if you were in line, you were now onside. Any through ball, Kevin had such electric pace that if he was level with the defender when it was played, he was always getting there first! I think he got 20 goals that season for Blackburn Rovers and he carried that on into Scotland’s games.”

Ultimately, the Estonian shenanigans counted for nothing as Scotland reeled off three straight wins to complete the group and finish as UEFA’s best runners up, earning automatic qualification for the World Cup. So far, so good. But this is Scotland we’re talking of. Nothing is ever straightforward.

“Having qualified, our hopes were dealt a sizeable blow when Gary McAllister got injured playing for Coventry City and had to miss the tournament. Gary was the main man in our team at the time and so to lose him disrupted us greatly. In fact, in every tournament we went to during my time on the staff with Scotland, we were missing a key player. We went to Mexico without Kenny Dalglish, in 1990 we were without Davie Cooper and John Robertson and then in 1998, it was Gary that was missing. A small country like Scotland, we cannot cope without our main players and on each occasion, we failed to get out of the group stage. That’s not wholly attributable to injuries of course, but it must be a significant factor.

“Then the draw for the World Cup itself meant that we were grouped with the holders, Brazil – it always seems to be Brazil for Scotland at World Cups! It turned out that we were going to open the World Cup itself by playing Brazil in Paris, and you can’t have a more attractive fixture to play than that.

“As part of our preparations I went to see Brazil on a number of occasions, I watched many DVDs. I think we were ready for them and I felt we played well on the day. Bobby Robson was a big help to me in fact, because their main man was Ronaldo and Bobby had coached him in Spain, at Barcelona. I met Bobby and asked him how to stop Ronaldo, did we man mark him, double up on him, what was the best approach?

“He said, ‘Craig, if he is on form, you’ll never stop him! He’s the best striker I’ve ever worked with. I’ve had Lineker, Romario, but Ronaldo is stronger, fitter, better than them. You’ll not stop him by marking him or anything like that. All you can do, what you must do, is cut off the supply.’

“So I went away and analysed the set up of the Brazilian team, their distribution, and I found that most of the passes to him came, amazingly enough, from the right-back, Cafu. So rather than mark Ronaldo, we marked Cafu!

“I said to Christian Dailly who was on the left side for us, “If Cafu crosses the halfway line, you get right up against him. Even when he hasn’t, get right up against him so that he doesn’t get time on that ball to pick out Ronaldo”. He used to play a lovely ball right into Ronaldo’s feet, but by using Dailly in that way, we managed to eliminate a lot of the supply and in our game, Ronaldo didn’t really do a great deal so Bobby’s advice was absolutely spot on. Having said that, the own goal that we conceded came from Cafu’s cross, but you’re talking about some of the greatest players in the world here.

“As I’ve said, the real problem we gave ourselves was conceding after four minutes and there is no question that the opening ceremony disrupted us. We did get to walk on the pitch briefly before the game and what we did do, which surprised everyone, was turn up in the kilt! That certainly went down well with our fans and even the Brazilian supporters admired the national costume too. I’d brought that idea from Germany, from Bayern Munich, because I’d been to a lecture by their youth coach, Bernhard Kern, and he said that when the youth team travelled away, they did so in the Bavarian costume to remind them of their identity. I felt that was a good idea and it set a tone for us.”

Brown’s efforts to try and engender a positive mood and approach was particularly important given the prevailing mood amongst the Scottish media, one that had existed ever since the draw for the competition had pitted them against Brazil for that first game.

“In Scotland, in the media especially, there’s an anti-hero syndrome, you’re not allowed to be good at anything! There’s a blood group in Scotland which is unique to the world, it’s called “B Negative”! That mood pervades all sports. There was a guy from Scotland who won the Open a few years ago, back in 1999, Paul Lawrie, a big Aberdeen supporter. But if you read the media here, he never won it. Van de Velde lost the Open. That is the mentality among the media here unfortunately.

“Ahead of the World Cup and the Brazil game in particular, the expectations were of us losing and words like “humiliation” were used, the media talking of it being an embarrassment and all that kind of thing. In a perverse way, it was actually helpful to me, because it helped to motivate the players. They knew they could give a good account of themselves and if you looked at the record we’d had over the previous four years, even on the very few occasions where we had lost games, we’d only done so narrowly.

“I kept reminding the players that we’d been written off already so they were determined to do a good job on the day. Then the little details, like wearing the kilt, that created its own atmosphere, it got the fans going and from there, I felt we played very well, despite losing the early goal, and there was a recognition around the competition that we had done well.

“While the media have the B Negative mentality, the Scottish fans are terrific, their attitude, the numbers they travel in and so on. They are so supportive and you really couldn’t wish for anything more from them. Generally, the Tartan Army are an optimistic bunch, they don’t share that pessimism and the misgivings that you find in the press, although there’s no denying that over the piece, the media do influence the supporters quite a bit, and that is inevitable.

“We had Rod Stewart following us with the Tartan Army I remember, he was at all our games in France. We travelled to Bordeaux to play Norway and he spent some time with us before that game. The boys enjoyed his company and having him around was a lift for them.

“Going out to play Norway in the next game, we were confident because after having played so well against the Brazilians, the holders and the favourites for the competition, and with Morocco to follow, we felt that we had an opportunity to do enough to qualify for the knockout stages.

“The Norwegian game, we created a number of very good opportunities, but unfortunately, we couldn’t take them and then we were knocked back right at the start of the second half when they took the lead. I felt we kept going well, Craig Burley got us an equaliser and we came away with a draw, which was not a disaster by any means.”

It meant that after two games, Brazil had already qualified with six points, Norway, who still had to play them, had two and Scotland and Morocco were on one point each, Scotland’s goal difference better than their coming African opponents. Depending on Norway’s result against Brazil, even a draw might be enough for Scotland, while victory would mean Norway would need to defeat the world champions to progress at Scotland’s expense. Suddenly, the Scottish media had gone from trepidation to expectation. For those who recall the hubris of ’78, that was dangerous territory…

“Again there’s another misconception among supporters, not just in Scotland but in England too – “oh, it’s just Morocco”. Had it been Nigeria, perhaps there’d have been more respect for the opposition, but they were dismissed back in Scotland. Thirty years before, that might have been justified, but not then. They were the African champions, they have a population of 35 million people, they are very keen on their football. I’d been over to Casablanca to see them and it was very apparent the quality that they had. To be the African champions, that is no small achievement, but the footballing public back home weren’t given adequate warning that this was a difficult game in prospect.

“It’s very much the nature of tournament football and the four team group situation that when you come to that final game, if things are tight, you do sometimes find yourself in a position where you have to chase games and sometimes, that can lead to a pretty poor result. I’m not denying that we didn’t play well against Morocco, we should have played better and we accepted the responsibility for an indifferent display.

“They caught us out a couple of times and it was 2-0 to them early in the second half when we had Craig Burley sent off, admittedly for a rash tackle. To be a man short in a game we needed to at least draw, I then had to go chasing the game. I changed the team and went to try and grab something back. I brought on Tosh McKinlay for Jackie McNamara to try and get us forward and play in amore attacking full-back role but unfortunately, we couldn’t get back into it and we lost the game 3-0.

“The goals were softly conceded and it was disappointing to go out on that basis as a team that, in the preceding years, had given very little away. I had 70 games with Scotland and only on three occasions did we lose three goals so to do it in those circumstances, it was a heart-breaking situation.”

It was to be Brown’s last taste of tournament football with Scotland but for all the disappointments, France ’98 is a memory that will live with him forever.

“The 1998 campaign was my fifth major tournament on the staff with Scotland.  It started in Mexico in 1986 when Alex Ferguson was in charge after the very sad death of Jock Stein at the very end of the qualification period. I was there as part of the coaching set up. In 1990 when we played in Italy, I was the assistant manager to Andy Roxburgh, I had the same role in the European Championships in 1992 and then managed Scotland in the Euros in England in 1996. So going out to France, I had plenty of experience of international football. But being in charge and at a World Cup, that was something again.

“When you’re not the manager, when you don’t have the ultimate responsibility, you’re really cocky about it! I remember playing Uruguay in 1986 and Alex Ferguson asking the staff what we thought. When you’re not in the firing line, it’s easy to say, “Why are we going four at the back against one?” That one was a wonderful player called Francescoli but you can be full of, “Let’s take a defender off!”

“Alex didn’t do that and we ended up with a 0-0 result which was a disgrace given how they played, they were so brutal, so negative, but they did the job they wanted to do. In the end, that result cost us progression but later, when you’re making the calls, you can understand what was going through Alex’s mind!

“Over a 12 year period, we did five major tournaments and I was privileged enough to be at them all in some capacity with the team. At the time, people always want more, they think you should be doing better and perhaps in these islands, that’s something we all do a bit too much of.

“I felt that by 2000, people were fed up with me and that it was time for a fresh start. There was a feeling that people wanted the team to be more gung ho and more of the “Braveheart” thing, but international football isn’t like that any more, if it ever was. It’s a very studied, almost scientific process at that level and you do have to be very vigilant and very careful if you want consistent success, especially from a smaller country.

“We almost made it six tournaments in 14 years too. We got to the play-offs for Euro 2000 and lost out to England, I was so embarrassed that we hadn’t qualified that I resigned straight away, I felt it was time for me to go. Whether the SFA would have kept me on in any case, I don’t know, but after failing to qualify for that competition after eight years as manager with a 100% qualification record, I felt quite ashamed. If I’d known what was going to happen in the years after that, maybe I wouldn’t have felt quite so bad about it!”

CRAIG BROWN’S ALL-TIME SCOTLAND XI

Back in 2017, the AFC programme asked Craig Brown to select his all-time Scotland XI. Craig being Craig, he made a thorough job of it, even picking those he would have on the bench too…

It’s a 4-3-3 that I’m picking and straight away, Jim Leighton is in goal. His statistics are incredible, 45 clean sheets in 91 caps. That is enough to tell you that over the years, Jim was outstanding for Scotland.

The right-back would be Danny McGrain. I would like to give my former team-mate and friend a mention, because Alex Hamilton got 24 caps for Scotland whilst playing for Dundee, but Danny was genuinely world class. I am sure he would also get into many World XIs.

Alex McLeish and Willie Miller are inseparable in central defence. Their partnership makes them an easy choice, they had such a good understanding. People sometimes forget they were in that Aberdeen side that won the Super Cup as well as the Cup Winners’ Cup, beating the Hamburg team that won the European Cup over two legs, a fantastic achievement. If you were to put one of them in individually, there is not another obvious choice to play next to them. Big Gordon McQueen would be my next one to play with one or the other, so big Gordon makes the bench. Another player with an Aberdeen connection who would be considered for the squad is Martin Buchan.

Left-back was a harder decision, trying to pick between Tommy Gemmell and Eric Caldow. Both were very good full-backs and, coincidentally, both were right footed. I will go for Eric, but there’s very little between them.

When I went with the national team to the World Cup in Mexico in 1986, we had one left footed player in the whole squad – Davie Cooper, who came on as a sub in the last game. Gordon Strachan took the corners but we could not get in-swingers from one side. Instead, we had to improvise with an out-swinger and Richard Gough would come up for a header.

In the midfield, Dave Mackay was my boyhood hero when he was at Hearts before he joined Tottenham. He was hard and immaculate. Scotland have had plenty of other quality midfielders, and plenty of hard players, but Mackay was the best we have produced in my opinion. Complementing Dave, I would also have Billy Bremner in there, I will put him on the right and Jim Baxter on the left.

Up front we will have Jimmy Johnstone, who just makes it ahead of Willie Henderson. Willie was quicker but Jimmy gets selected as he was more skillful and direct. Jimmy was also picked the best Celtic player ever, ahead of Billy McNeill, who is another centre-half who makes my bench, so Jimmy has to get a game.

My mainline striker is Denis Law. Arguably Scotland’s greatest ever player and the only Scottish player to have been voted European Player of the Year. I was delighted to see that Denis, who scored 30 goals for his county, receiving the freedom of Aberdeen. For the celebration dinner that night, I arranged for Bobby Lennox and Jim McCalliog to come along, so you have the three goal scorers from that game against England in 1967 coming to the one function.

Tucked in around Denis, it would be Kenny Dalglish. Kenny, with 102 caps and 30 goals, was a tremendous player. Liverpool in the ‘80s had one of the greatest ever club sides and Kenny was a major part of that team. What I really like about Kenny is that he was a very grounded individual, very modest. We have had a lot of Scottish players over the years with great ability who have not gone and had the careers they should have for whatever reason, but thankfully Kenny did.

The Bench

When it is an international game, now you are allowed 12 on the bench. That can make it hard as an international manager when you have more players sitting behind you that you have on the park! They are all star players for their club, half of them are captains, and you have to tell them that they are not playing.

My two goalkeepers would be Andy Gorman and Alan Rough and my defenders would be Tommy Gemmell, Gordon McQueen, Billy McNeill and Martin Buchan.

I have to mention some players from the squad I managed, players who never let me down such as Calderwood, Henry, Boyd and Collins. I would pick Paul Lambert – there are not many Scottish players who won the Champions League and I would also pick Gary McAllister. He was outstanding alongside Strachan when Leeds won the last ever Division One title in England. He also went on and had a great career at Liverpool.