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Wednesday 1 May 2024:  kick-off 7.05pm

Scottish Youth Cup Final - Aberdeen v Rangers

Live on the BBC Scotland channel

🔴⚪️ Come on you Reds! ⚪🔴

Craig Brown


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A lovely guy, and an very underrated boss.

When he was Aberdeen manager and I was still at university, I managed to wrangle a one on one interview with him at Pittodrie. Thought I'd get 10 mins with him and some short answers.

I was there for about four hours, with him insisting I went for lunch with him first.

He was cheeky and smart enough to test me and see if I'd go spilling things I shouldn't, so fed me nonsense about Aberdeen having confirmed a pre-season tour in Russia to see if it made the papers, which of course I ate up (but thankfully didn't publish). 🤣

Last met him five years ago on the 20th anniversary of Scotland v Brazil. I could have sat all day and listened to his stories. Like someone said today, "I hope he's written a book and it gets released now, because it'll be brilliant."

As Aberdeen manager he had a horrible job to do; take over a shambles of a team and try turn the ship around. Got us to (I think, from memory) three semi-finals with a bang average squad. Put in place the building blocks for McInnes to go on and win the cup.

RIP to an absolute gentlemen.

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1 hour ago, Panda said:

A lovely guy, and an very underrated boss.

When he was Aberdeen manager and I was still at university, I managed to wrangle a one on one interview with him at Pittodrie. Thought I'd get 10 mins with him and some short answers.

I was there for about four hours, with him insisting I went for lunch with him first.

He was cheeky and smart enough to test me and see if I'd go spilling things I shouldn't, so fed me nonsense about Aberdeen having confirmed a pre-season tour in Russia to see if it made the papers, which of course I ate up (but thankfully didn't publish). 🤣

Last met him five years ago on the 20th anniversary of Scotland v Brazil. I could have sat all day and listened to his stories. Like someone said today, "I hope he's written a book and it gets released now, because it'll be brilliant."

As Aberdeen manager he had a horrible job to do; take over a shambles of a team and try turn the ship around. Got us to (I think, from memory) three semi-finals with a bang average squad. Put in place the building blocks for McInnes to go on and win the cup.

RIP to an absolute gentlemen.

Last bit in bold is my memory of him. Absolute gentleman every time he had the misfortune to be in my company. Ran into him on several Scotland trips over the years and always made time to speak and take photos. 

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Nice wee tribute to him on the sportsound podcast, his boxing ability is mentioned actually but not in reference to this tale.  Would have love to have met pa broon, the boy had a tale or two to tell for sure.  I just wish his teams would have gone for it the same way he did for the ladies. 

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Seemed to be one of the most positive people you would ever hear.  He always thought we could win, even when you used to hear him as a pundit post retirement and he was asked to comment on an upcoming Scotland game.  Most people would have us written off but wee Craig always had a "sneaky feeling" Scotland would do it.

Yesterday made me think how bizarre international football management is in a lot of ways.  Managing your country was always viewed as the highest honour and we had people like Stein, Ferguson, Smith etc who have done it yet we appointed a man whose only club job had been at Clyde.  He also seemed a bit short changed to have done so well with the national team yet came out of it to a job at Preston, you would have thought a club at a higher level may have taken a punt on him.  

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