I’ll enjoy every moment and play with a smile. I know it may not last that long...

I’d have to go away and earn right to take on the Celtic manager’s job

INTERVIEWS with Scott Brown tend to follow the same pattern. Selfdeprecation is interspersed with jokes, some sharp observations and the occasional Anglo-Saxon turn of phrase.

For the exercise to be taken seriously, the right buttons have to be pressed. Push him on the day he stops playing football and Celtic’s captain is taken to places he’d rather not go.

‘I just don’t want to finish playing,’ he admits bluntly.

‘I’d love to play to 37 or 38 if I possibly could. I look at people like Gordon (Strachan) and Gary McAllister who played into their forties. They did it back then, although it’s a different world now.

‘We have 60 games a season and that’s a lot on your body. I got just six days’ holiday last year so it’s tough. If I could get three or four weeks off to recharge my batteries then I’ll feel fresh to start the season.

‘But it sometimes becomes a drag and you feel sluggish — maybe picking up an injury or two — and you’re playing catch-up with all the younger lads...’ There’s life in the old dog yet. In an aerobic beep test laid on by Celtic’s coaching staff in Dubai this week, Brown matched 20-year-old Kieran Tierney and 24-year-old Callum McGregor stride for stride.

His personal fitness is as good now as it was as an 18-year-old, hyperactive, Coca-Cola-guzzling Hibernian midfielder.

He didn’t know any better then but now, at 32, he listens to the ticking of the body clock like a convict on death row. He treats every day as a professional footballer like a precious commodity.

‘I think the hardest thing (will be) not being in a dressing room with 20 lads and having the banter at training and losing the winning mentality,’ he admits.

‘One day I could be training with the lads and the next day it’s the end of the season and you’re retired.

‘For now I will enjoy every moment and play with a smile on my face because I know it might not last that long.

‘I appreciate people more than ever. I appreciate training, coming to a place like Dubai, socialising with guys at night or by the pool. You take that in more than you did when you were a teenager.

‘I left school and went straight into it and I don’t know anything else. It’s not like I’ve had a nine-to-five job and can go straight into it when I retire. Stuart (Armstrong) is studying law — but I don’t think that’s for me.’

Playing the daft boy never did Brown much harm. He has made a lucrative career out of people underestimating his ability and intelligence. Get past the self-defensive humour and he’s a sharper, shrewder professional than people give him credit for.

Tierney is virtually his mini-me, watching his every move like a pup learning tricks. Yet Brown will tell you himself; it took time to get to where he is now.

Asked what he would tell his 18-year-old self now, he laughs.

‘I’d say enjoy yourself — but not too much. I’d tell him to work hard and not just do enough to get by in training sessions.

‘You have to do it right off the field as well and look after what you’re eating.

‘I never even cooked before I was 25...

‘I didn’t have the luxuries that I got at Celtic when I came through at Hibs. By that I mean dieticians working full-time, making sure you eat the right things and meals at lunch.

‘I came through at Hibs and we had pasta and chicken at lunch and were then being told: “Sorry, there’s not enough chicken.” Then it was straight down to Greggs...’ Close to 11 years since he joined Celtic, Brown remains one of the club’s most expensive signings and is ninth in the list of their individual trophy winners. The £4.5million paid to Hibs for his services has been returned with interest. Yet when Brendan Rodgers arrived as manager, the midfielder was already asking questions of a body racked with tendonitis. Asking how much longer it might give him. He said: ‘I took six weeks off before the new manager came in and at that time everyone was saying I was finished. ‘I knew that if I went away and worked on everything I needed to do for six weeks and got in a good condition then I had a chance. ‘When the manager came in I felt I was in the last-chance saloon. I had two years left and I thought: “I’ll see how it goes and if I play I play and if not then I’ll have given it everything I had.”

‘I’m enjoying every single moment now and I want to keep going as long as I can.’

If it all ended tomorrow he’d have plenty to sustain him. Brown is a family man now.

He earns more in a week than many Scots earn in a year. His status as a Celtic legend is pretty much secure. Yet he insists: ‘It’s not about the money, it’s about enjoying my life and my job.

‘I’m lucky enough to win trophies with these guys, play in front of 60,000 people and that’s incredible as well. I take it in as I know it won’t last.

‘I speak to Tom Boyd and, while he comes to every single home game and loves it, he still wishes he could be out there playing.’

The nightmare scenario of an early retirement is based on the experiences of colleagues and friends. Men like Celtic coach John Kennedy and best friend Kevin Thomson (now coaching Rangers academy kids) were victims of football’s indiscriminate cruelty. Cut down by injury in their prime. ‘Thommo

could still be playing now,’ says Brown, ‘but he has his training academy and he enjoys that. He stayed in football because he enjoys it and it’s the only thing we all know. ‘Kendo had to deal with real hardship, making so many comebacks and then slowly having to call it day as he knew that five years down the line he could be in a wheelchair. ‘Now you look at him — he’s doing a great job under a great manager and he could go on himself to be a great manager.’ All of which raises an obvious suspicion. That when the fun of playing stops, Brown will try to defy expectations and critics once more by doing something no one would have thought possible ten years ago. Becoming a manager. As he speaks, Rodgers is talking to Dubai journalists in a corner of the Celtic hotel. With an exaggerated nod towards his manager, Brown grins: ‘I’ve done my coaching badges and I just need to make sure I keep someone’s (Rodgers’) number on speed dial for when I need it.’

Asked if he, too, could be a Celtic manager one day, he acknowledges the need to earn the right first.

‘It would be phenomenal but you need to start somewhere. I know Neil Lennon came in when there were problems and he turned out to be phenomenal.

‘But the club is in an incredible position now with an incredible manager and, if he ever left, Celtic would be in a position to go out and get another great manager who would love the job having done well elsewhere.

‘I think for now I’d have to go away and earn the right to take on the Celtic job.

‘I could pick up the phone to a lot of managers. I’ve been close with a lot of them and I could pick up the phone and get advice at any time.’

The idea of Brown the manager will strike many as improbable. Unimaginable even.

Yet, as he points out, the same people said the same of Lennon.

‘I don’t think he saw himself as a manager,’ said Brown.

‘I’m not sure if he’d done all his badges when he was chucked in at the deep end by Celtic, and he seemed to enjoy it and thrive. He went to Bolton, came back stronger and took over at Hibs.’

Fourteen years have passed since Brown broke into the Hibernian midfield.

Now closer to the end of his playing career than the start, he is beginning to take stock. To appreciate what he has.

‘At 18 I think I was fighting in midfield with Lenny,’ he recalls.

‘You don’t ever think when you are 21 about what you will do 15 years down the line.

‘It’s only when you get to my age and you realise the next step is not far away that you go and get the badges. You have to be ready to take chances that come your way.’