IT seemed only polite to warm up Geoff Brown by getting all the usual stuff - footballers' wages, league reconstruction, all the rest of it - out of the way before framing the question which had been on my mind from the moment we shook hands.

"So Geoff, how are you keeping these days?" It was not a matter to be raised lightly with someone who has been treated for cancer.

Five years had passed since we last sat down to discuss, as well as all the mundane football matters, the fact that the St Johnstone chairman had received treatment for prostate cancer. The procedure had turned out to be anything but straightforward. After an initial all-clear a tumour was found which required an operation, and while Brown was in theatre the surgeon accidentally cut through his bowel.

For someone in their late 50s, as he was at the time, there is a depressing tendency for these sorts of issues to cast a shadow over the rest of a man's life.

"At that point I did feel someone was telling me this is your life you're fighting for'. So football became a lesser concern. It wasn't a coincidence that St Johnstone were relegated that season," said Brown.

So, all things considered, by far the most significant and pleasing answer he gave during an hour and a half in his company in Perth last week was the confirmation that the surgery seemed to be successful and that he remained free from cancer. "I'm fine now. I'm good. That was back in 2000-2001 so last October it was five years down the line. Touch wood, it's been fine since then."

Brown certainly looks well, with a robustness not always evident in a 63-year-old who has come back from health problems. The Perthshire air has been good for him.

He seems to have been the backbone of St Johnstone forever, to the extent that it is difficult to imagine how the club could manage without him. He is one of those unchanging, stable pillars who frustrates and reassures supporters simultaneously. Even as they yearn for him to break the habit of a lifetime and increase St Johnstone's strict transfer and salary budgets, they know, too, that their club has been run with uncommon good sense. Hell would freeze over before the receivers were called in to McDiarmid Park.

If they beat Hibs in Wednesday's CIS Cup semi-final at Tynecastle St Johnstone will be in their first cup final for eight-and-a-half years. That would be the club's second milestone in three months given that in October Brown marked his 20th anniversary in charge. He is the longest-serving chairman in Scottish football and remains one of the most perceptive and shrewd voices outwith the SPL.

Brown is a realist, bowing to no-one when it comes to knowing how to ensure a club runs within its means. As a long-serving administrator and champion of the Scottish Football League it was interesting that after initial scepticism he came around to the notion that SPL2 was worth exploring. Brown is also of the view that part-time football should be embraced rather than regarded as a declaration of surrendered ambition.

"The average wage in the First Division, if you take Gretna out of the equation, will be less than a £350-a-week basic for full-time footballer. So the part-time/full-time division is less than it used to be. If someone can go around driving a van to get £250 a week and another £200 for playing part-time football they are better off doing that.

"I am not a fan of boys leaving school at 15 or 16 and going into full-time football. I think they should be going out and working, learning a trade. The problem is that daddy' always wants his laddie to be a top footballer. How many young laddies come through to be a top player?"

If Brown is the sober bank manager, Gretna and Brooks Mileson have been carefree high-rollers. It goes without saying that Brown does not care much for Gretna's spending model, but I wonder if it goes further than that. Does he resent them for a level of investment which will probably mean they, rather than second-placed St Johnstone, are promoted to the SPL in May?

"Gretna has a population of 2000. Yes Gretna have been successful since they came into the league - Brooks Mileson has backed them to the hilt - but is that sustainable? Don't get me wrong. I don't resent Gretna. If someone wants to spend all their money on a club that's up to them. Some daft devil will do that. That's happened in British football for yonks. But once they see the light it might be different. It's fine having a plaything for a wee while but you can't sustain that on an ongoing basis.

"I try to run the club as a business. What I resent is the fact that clubs that got into debt and administration were still allowed to stay in the SPL. Livingston, Dundee and Motherwell were in receivership and they were still in the SPL. What happened to them? Nothing.

"St Johnstone paid their creditors, paid their football debts, and what happened to us? We got held down. Someone else racks up £23m of debt but we get relegated as a consequence of not going into so much debt. That really sticks in my throat."

When they see others going unpunished for running up debts some St Johnstone supporters are inclined to give Brown a hard time for being too conservative. He is grateful to supporters for they way they treat him, but doubts whether most appreciate his firm hand on the tiller. "Oh no. No, no, no. They see millions of debts at other clubs without it really affecting the way those clubs are run. So they ask me why don't you just do the same thing'. Maybe it's down to me. I always think there is going to be a day when you have to face up to your debts or you'll be booted out. A day of reckoning."

If that sounded like an Old Testament preacher, do not be fooled. Brown was in good humour. He has 10 racehorses, fishes, shoots, and divides time between his club and GS Brown Construction, his company. St Johnstone are in the best shape since the fun of playing in the 1999-2000 Uefa Cup. He would "give the club away" if he found someone he could trust to look after it properly. But his son, Steve, is a director and St Johnstone's future is Brown.

"I've still got high blood pressure but I am able to put things in context," he said. "I've had a busy life. I work hard, I play hard, and I don't know what would change that. I'm not into retiring, sitting about, going on holidays all the time. I'm just not into that."

Although he "fears" the damage Hibs may do to his team on Wednesday, he said that with a laugh. When St Johnstone gave Rangers a bloody nose in November by winning 2-0 in the Cup at Ibrox it was right up Brown's street. Sir David Murray did not hang around at full-time to congratulate him. And that made the moment even sweeter.