Craig Brown, who has died aged 82, was the most successful manager of Scotland’s football team in recent times. He took the national side to two major tournament finals, including their last appearance on the World Cup stage, in France in 1998.
Brown was as close to a universally well-liked figure as it is possible to be in the competitive world of football. Erudite, witty and unfailingly courteous, he was far removed from the managerial stereotype of his era. However, he also claimed to be “bilingual”, with a tougher vocabulary reserved for the dressing-room.
Scotland played in the opening game of the 1998 tournament against Brazil as holders, at the Stade de France. They arrived dressed in kilts to empathise with the patriotic fervour in the stadium. Brown had consulted Bobby Robson, who had managed the great Ronaldo at Barcelona, about how to stop him.
Robson’s reply was not encouraging. “You don’t. Just don’t let him get the ball.” Scotland’s captain that day, Colin Hendry, recalled that as the teams lined up in the tunnel, Brown walked past, observed the Brazilians and told his own troops: “Just have a look at their faces, lads. They’re panicking at the sight of you.”
Until the 74th minute, the game remained tied, but it ended in a 2-1 victory for Brazil. Scotland drew with Norway in Bordeaux but a noble campaign ended in anticlimax with a 3-0 defeat to Morocco in St-Étienne. As it turned out, it would not have mattered, since Norway pulled off an unlikely victory over Brazil, and it was Morocco who swallowed the bitter pill of winning but not qualifying.
Brown was born in the Corkerhill area of Glasgow, the son of Hugh, a PE instructor who was influential on Craig’s career choices, and Margaret. After the war, his father’s employment took the family around the west of Scotland, before they settled in Hamilton. Craig’s childhood hero was Dave Mackay, then of Hearts and later of Spurs.
Brown was unusual in that he combined his football career, first as player and then in management, with one in education. He was headmaster of a primary school in Lanarkshire then, for 17 years until 1986, a lecturer in primary education at Craigie College in Ayr.
As a player he initially signed with Rangers (who sent him on loan to a junior club), before going to Dundee and Falkirk, and later becoming assistant manager of Motherwell and part-time manager of Clyde. It was only in his mid-40s, when he was appointed assistant national coach by the Scottish Football Association, that football became his full-time occupation.
Dundee in the early 1960s were managed by Bob Shankly, brother of Bill. Brown was his first signing and when Dundee won the Scottish League in 1962, he made nine appearances, which entitled him to a winner’s medal. It is now hard to recall that this classic Dundee side then reached the semi-final of the European Cup.
A recurring knee injury limited and then ended Brown’s playing career and he pursued his interest in coaching, gaining the necessary badges, having also graduated with honours from Jordanhill College and taken a BA through the Open University. He turned down full-time football roles in the interests of job security, but finally succumbed to an invitation from Alex Ferguson to join his backroom team for the 1986 World Cup in Mexico.
Ferguson had taken over temporarily following the sudden death of Jock Stein, and when Andy Roxburgh became Scotland team manager that summer, Brown stayed on as assistant and under-21 manager. Roxburgh and Brown made a great pairing, both before their time in the science of coaching. Scotland qualified for the 1990 World Cup in Italy and the European Championship finals in 1992.
When he succeeded Roxburgh, after Scotland failed to qualify for the 1994 World Cup finals, Brown led them to Euro 1996 in England, winning seven out of 10 matches to qualify. In the group stages, they failed to progress only when Patrick Kluivert scored a late goal for the Netherlands against England to make it a 4-1 defeat, giving the Dutch second place because they had scored more goals.
These relative glory days for Scotland’s national team ended with the 1998 qualification, and Brown left the role in 2001. It is only recently this status has been recovered under Steve Clarke, who said: “Craig led the way in bringing sustained qualification to the men’s national team, first as assistant to Andy Roxburgh and then in his own right. He was a student of the game and I am proud that I followed in his footsteps by taking a Scotland team back to a major tournament.”
After leaving the Scotland job, Brown succeeded David Moyes at Preston North End who had just missed promotion to the Premiership. Brown was popular with the Deepdale support and credited with “steadying the ship” following the trauma of the club’s near-miss and Moyes’s departure for Everton. After two seasons, he fell out with the chairman and they parted company.
He worked as a consultant with Fulham and Derby, also briefly managing Motherwell, as well as holding Uefa and Fifa roles. In 2010, he became manager of Aberdeen when the club was threatened with relegation, and he retired three years later. He remained a director and latterly ambassador for the Pittodrie club, and a welcome adornment of Scottish football’s boardrooms.
Brown was a great raconteur and in constant demand as a speaker. He was patron of Scottish Disability Sport and an ambassador for Sports Chaplaincy UK, and was appointed CBE in 1999.
He is survived by his wife, Johan, whom he married in 1964, two sons, Hugh and John, and a daughter, Val, and six grandchildren.
• James Craig Brown, footballer and manager, born 1 July 1940; died 26 June 2023
