Brown's prudent path poised to lead Saints back to promised land

Published on Friday 17 April 2009 22:19

A JOINER by trade, Geoff Brown, Scotland's longest-serving football chairman, sees merit in structures which last. After seven years outwith the top flight of Scottish football, when Brown was forced to question his aversion to saddling St Johnstone with a mountain of debt, the Perth club is poised to take the prudent path back to the summit of the game.

Currently seven points clear at the top of the First Division with just four games remaining, St Johnstone, which celebrates its 125th anniversary this year, could all but secure a return to the SPL should they defeat Queen of the South at McDiarmid Park tomorrow afternoon. If it seems more likely the issue will be settled against Dundee at Dens Park on 25 April, Brown won't complain.

A lifelong St Johnstone supporter, Brown was present at the match in 1962 when their great rivals, Dundee, celebrated winning the championship by relegating the Perth club. He's waited nearly half a century for an opportunity to see the books balanced."Dundee didn't require to win that match to clinch the league, so there's a lot of history," he smiled.

In his 23 years in charge of St Johnstone – he took over in the autumn of 1986 – Brown has managed the business of the football club as carefully as his own construction company. He oversaw the flitting from Muirton to McDiarmid Park and kept a steady hand on the purse strings during a period when the economics of Scottish football drew unwise inspiration from the writings of John Maynard Keynes, the great proponent of spending money you don't have.

Brown is averse to the idea of not meeting obligations and recalled: "I was quite annoyed, to say the least, that we landed in a situation where Motherwell, Livingston and Dundee went into administration but were allowed to remain in the higher league. We're keeping our noses clean, paying all our bills but couldn't do anything about it. We were relegated from the SPL simply because we would not go into the same debt as the rest.

"Our supporters couldn't understand why we were not willing to go down the same path as everyone else. To be honest, there were times when I wondered myself if we were doing the right thing. But it's good business to pay your bills because that means you can go back to the people who supply you; if you don't pay your bills, you make enemies. I don't see this as something with a return. I believe a football club is important to a town."

Having earned a right to survey the game's moral high ground, Brown subsequently spoke out against the inequity of Gretna's surge through the leagues long before the late Brooks Mileson's money ran out and the club folded. "I was one of the original architects of the SPL and back then I admired Fergus McCann (the former owner of Celtic]," Brown recalled. "He made a strong case for meeting financial criteria before you could become a member. Bearing in mind where he'd brought Celtic from, it was shrewd thinking. Unfortunately, the SPL didn't adopt that idea. That was because clubs such as Hearts had quite a bit of debt and there were two or three others which would also have failed to meet Fergus' terms.

"If that idea had been put into place then Gretna would not have been allowed to make the move they did. There was no way they should have been allowed to rip up the structure. It simply wasn't sustainable. When Gretna were top of the First Division, they came to play us in January and brought 82 supporters to our ground on a day they could wrap up promotion. It couldn't last and it didn't."

Having spent the last seven years in the First Division, Brown understands the harsh realities of life in football beyond the top tier. He jokes about this sportswriter not having called him for years. He's right, of course. The lower leagues are starved of media attention as well as resources.

"I've said for a long time that full-time football in the First Division is difficult to finance," he added. "You have a profit and loss account, and if more goes out than comes in then you have to do something about it. That means either increasing income or decreasing expenditure. The way football is at the moment, and the state of the economy, the chance of more money coming into the lower divisions is fractional. If there isn't more coming in, how can you spend more? Full-time football is not sustainable.

"In our case, the projected figures for the financial year which ends in May show that we've run at a loss over the past 12 months. Now, St Johnstone have been top of the league for more than half the season and we've also had a televised home game against Rangers. Our expenditure has been nothing out of the ordinary and the income is reasonable. So if we can't break even, when we don't have overdrafts or millions of debt to service, I have to look at all my fellow clubs in the division and say: 'Guys, I don't know what you're doing.'"

While Brown hopes to have the pleasant task of financing an upgrade for St Johnstone's playing staff should the club win promotion, he also understands just how costly it will be for the unfortunate club which is relegated from the SPL. "When we went down in 2001, the year after we were relegated we lost 1.75million," he remembers. "For a club like St Johnstone, that was quite frightening. We employed players on six-figure salaries when ITV Digital went bust during the close season. But for that happening we could have moved players to England. The TV deal in Scotland also went out the window.

"Depending on which league you are in, you have to adjust. If you want to attract better players, you have to pay more money, which comes from higher income. Only Hibernian have been relegated and bounced straight back up again. They came to talk to me and I advised them to change their whole squad. They thought I was joking, but I wasn't. The SPL and the First Division are different animals. They listened and went on to win the league."

When St Johnstone were relegated, Brown was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Today, he says his health is good. He'll relish a return to the big time, but isn't sure the SPL have got their sums right either. "I don't think a league of 12, with a split, was the right thing for the game," he reflects. "The right thing was to play with ten, but the major clubs at the time were so desperate for their independence that they compromised.

"The year we won the First Division there were 14 clubs playing each other three times. With that format you get a similar number of fixtures to what you're looking for. Needless to say there were a lot of protestations about losing or gaining home advantage. That's nonsense. Look at what Manchester United accomplished in Porto – it didn't worry them playing away. In a country the size of Scotland, I believe 14 clubs playing each other three times could work."

PLAYER OF YEAR CANDIDATES ANNOUNCED

QUEEN of the South's Stephen Dobbie, Leigh Griffiths of Livingston, Gary Harkins of Partick Thistle and St Johnstone's Kevin Rutkiewicz are in the running to receive the PFA Scotland First Division Player of the Year award. The quartet have been named on a shortlist for the accolade, with the winner announced at the Hilton Glasgow on 3 May.

Dobbie, Queens' experienced striker, has scored 17 goals this season and he was on target last week against Partick. Livingston forward Griffiths has been in fine form at Almondvale and also has 17 goals to his name. Harkins, a midfielder, has been key to Partick's run to second in the table, while Saints defender Rutkiewicz is on course to life the First Division title.

The Second Division award will go to either Paul Cairney, who is on loan at Queen's Park from Partick Thistle, East Fife's Bobby Linn, Ayr United's Brian Prunty or Kevin Smith of Raith Rovers, while Bobby Barr of Albion Rovers, Cowdenbeath pair Darren McGregor and Paul McQuade, and Stenhousemuir's Kevin Motion are in the running for the Third Division player of the year prize.