When Scott Brown signed on at Celtic 10 years ago to the day, there wouldn’t have been many who would have thought he would last as long as he has at the club, let alone that a decade later he would be thriving as club captain. Least of all Scott Brown.
The 31-year-old’s Celtic story may be one of occasional tumult with the odd trial along the way, but it has ultimately been bookmarked by triumph, with his tenth season ending in a similar vein to his first - with the Premiership title safely in the trophy cabinet.
The fact that the League Cup is also in there and the Scottish Cup may yet follow suit is the icing on the anniversary cake for a man who has shown his many doubters this season that the fire is still burning inside of him, and that he is a worthy leader of a Celtic side that stands on the brink of history.
Read more: Celtic captain Scott Brown says he wants to end his career at the club
“Who would have thought that? When I first signed I was a cocky little p****,” Brown said. “I’ve enjoyed every single minute of it and there have been ups and there have been downs. But there have been a lot more ups than there have been downs.
“I remember sitting in my agent’s house in Bishopbriggs and he said everything was done and dusted. We were just waiting for the game to finish and for me to go and meet Peter Lawwell to sign the forms. Nobody knew which was good as I was still playing for Hibs at the time. Hibs and Celtic had agreed everything and it all came out a few weeks later.”
But for one man, Brown’s love affair with Celtic may not have got any further than a brief dalliance as he was courted by clubs the length and breadth of the land upon deciding his future lay away from Easter Road in the summer of 2007.
“I could have gone down to England, but for me the main thing was Gordon Strachan,” he said.
“The wee man was brilliant when I went and spoke to him, he understood what was going to happen and from that moment he was phenomenal.
“Everything about him, the way he trained and the way he spoke. The way Peter [Lawwell] spoke as well and how highly they spoke about me. I didn’t speak that highly of myself so it was quite good of them.”
Read more: Celtic captain Scott Brown says he wants to end his career at the club
The maturation of Brown in his time at the club from the unflattering terms he describes his younger self in to the man he has become has not solely been away from the field. He cites the deeper role he assumed at Celtic as being a pivotal moment in his development into the player he is today.
“I would bomb on, run about and chase every single ball and tackle anything that moved,” he said. “I didn’t have too much quality on the ball or the vision to see a pass.
“It was about getting my game away from the running and chasing a ball. Gordon taught me how to play in a position, he played a 4-4-2 at the time and made me more of a defensive midfielder rather than an attacker and I used my legs at the back.
“It was about making interceptions, making tackles, keeping the ball and keeping moving by doing the simple things. He got me to understand my game. Gordon started that.”
It was no secret that Celtic beat off competition from the English Premier League when they signed Brown, but the Celtic skipper admits that his flirtation with the world’s richest league didn’t end there, and that he almost gave in to his urges to test himself in that arena on several occasions while at Celtic.
But the fact that he didn’t hasn’t left him unfulfilled, and he doesn’t feel that he has anything to prove despite playing his entire professional career north of the border.
“I’ve been tempted [to leave], yeah,” he said. “There have been offers to go down south.
Read more: Celtic captain Scott Brown says he wants to end his career at the club
“My contract was almost up and I got a couple of offers to go down to the Premier League. But I spoke to Peter and he said, ‘look, we’ll sit down have a chat and get it sorted.’ He asked, ‘did I want to be here?’ I said yes and he assured me they wanted to keep me here as long as they could.
“For me, trust and loyalty is huge. Peter has given me that, Celtic have given me that, the manager has given me that as well and I have tried to give as much back as possible.
“I don’t need to prove anything to anybody. People can judge me if they want, but I’m not going to prove I need to be in England.
“I play for Scotland, I captain my country and the only thing I want to do is lead my country to a World Cup and win trophies for Celtic.”
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