Brown a true canny Scot

TAWDRY tales of television thrashing, tequila slamming and nightclubbing accompany one campaign. Temperance and celibacy, along with an easy going courtesy are the hallmarks of their opponents. Whereas controversy stalks a high profile England camp, Scotland are keeping it nice and low key. Who said teams reflect their managers?

Certainly the respective images of Terry Venables and Craig Brown appear to be reflected in one aspect of their teams preparations and profile. England have been hogging the headlines, not always for football matters. Scotland have been quietly accumulating the plaudits in their own untypically unimposing way.

It's been like this for much of their tenures as manager as well. Even before he was appointed English manager in January 1994, Venables was immersed in off field legal wrangles, with journalistic inquiries into his murky business life and legal feuds with his erstwhile Tottenham Hotspur co owner Alan Sugar. Those matters are set to return to the fore with an end of year series of court cases after his departure as English manager at the end of these championships.

High profile all the way, that's how it's been for the 53 year old only son of a lorry driver from Dagenham, who completed a full set of English caps 32 years ago during a notable playing career with Chelsea, Spurs, QPR and Crystal Palace.

A cocky cockney, Venables became Crystal Palace manager at the age of 32, taking the so called Team of the Eighties that ultimately never was from the Third to the old First Division in three seasons and bringing Queens Park Rangers from the Second Division to fifth place in the First in four years. On the strength of that he took Barcelona to the Spanish championship and the European Cup final before returning to London to manage Spurs.

His curriculum vitae is undoubtedly impressive, and Venables assent to the English job came amid a wave of approval for him from within the English game as the best coach in the English game. Yet opinion on the man and the manager will always be polarised, and is liable to remain so regardless of England's destiny in Euro 96.

A spiv and a spoofer, or a charmer and a genius? To his detractors glib, flash and opportunistic, to his proponents sensitive, astute and imaginative. Venables attracts attention and opinion, seemingly with gusto. After all, here is the man who two years ago launched his autobiography in his own club, Scribes West.

The irony is that chunks of the media he dealt with so expertly appear to be turning against him. Venables' public defence of players in the wake of adverse attention for their off field excesses both on the ill advised Far East trip and last weekend cut little ice with one time proponents of his in the press.

Meanwhile, the media and the public have taken an increasing shine to his Scottish counterpart Craig Brown who, heretofore, has had the profile of a limbo dancer. During an undistinguished playing career with Dundee and Falkirk cut short by injury, Brown enjoyed an unflattering sobriquet of Bleeper - in reference to a Soviet satellite which transmitted bleep signals - on account of his penchant for sending the ball skywards.

The 55 year old is forever referred to as "a former teacher". This is part of the inverted snobbery of some within the game who reluctantly accept what they see as outsiders of ill sufficient coaching qualifications.

This attitude also accompanied his predecessor, Andy Roxburgh, who, similarly, came from within the Scottish FA coaching network and was a "former teacher". This reporter can still recall the reaction of respected RTE panellists the night Roxburgh's appointment in succession to Alex Ferguson was announced. Roxburgh was dismissed then as "an FA coach", somehow not a real manager. Likewise, Brown has spent much of his four year tenure as Scottish manager endeavouring to overcome the "teacher" tag which occasionally makes him bridle.

"The last time I taught in a school class was in 1969. I've been in football management 22 years now, so there's inverted snobbery there. The impression is created that I never played the game, whereas I had a championship medal at 21 with Dundee."

As for me not being an international, Arrigo Sacchi (Italy's coach) didn't even play professionally, Brown points out, adding sardonically. We've only qualified for the final stages twice out of 10 European Championships, and each time the manager has been an ex teacher who hadn't a clue."

Furthermore, Brown stands on the verge of something that was beyond all his predecessors as Scottish manager, including Jock Stein and Alex Ferguson. After avoiding defeat in the opening game of the finals of a major championships for the first time in four attempts, this most unfancied of Scottish sides could be the first from the country to progress beyond the first round. That, at the ninth attempt (there have been seven unfulfilling World Cup odysseys and one in the European championships four years ago).

If it comes to pass, then it will be the reward for Brown's celebrated attention to detail and the preparation of a squad which by his own admission does not have a surfeit of quality international players.

This is indicative of a manager hitherto regarded suspiciously for copious hours spent on his private football video library and driving 40,000 miles per year to watch games. Brown has concentrated on the importance of dietary, physical and mental preparation.

"That's meant as a criticism but, I regard it as a tribute. We'll win nothing with claymores and bagpipes, or launching the ball long hoping to get a flick on. With our slender resources, made worse by the way league football in Britain abuses players, we have to be organised or we've no chance. I can honestly say that there wasn't one occasion in the qualifying group when I thought we'd made a mistake.

Errors, he acknowledges, were made in the friendly defeat to Denmark, the second of a four game losing run since qualification. However, this culminated in an uplifting 1-0 defeat to Colombia in the second of a two game tour to the States.

At the time, it was argued here and elsewhere that the United States offered better facilities and a less arduous trip than the one undertaken by England to the Far East. Self abuse, or at least self inflicted adverse publicity arising out of the latter venture has merely strengthened the impression.

A DAY before the finals, Venables was positively upbeat, and considered aloud England's chances of winning the tournament. Now he appears to be a victim of his own high profile and the grandiose ambitious of his public, which he helped fuel.

The English manager, understandably, looked stunned in the aftermath of the anti climactic opening game with Switzerland. He has turned on some of the media, with some justification, by calling them traitors.

Meantime, Brown maintained a mild mannered even keel before, during and after the meritorious draw with Holland. "This is good, this is important," observer Ruud Gullit, who, in the role of a BBC panellist, has emerged as the find of the tournament.

Brown has been courteous, thoughtful and humorous, yet guarded in his dealings with the media at the squad's base in Stratford upon Avon. Experience of the Mexico World Cup finals of 86, as part of Alex Ferguson's back up team, and as Roxburgh's assistant in Italia 90 and Euro 92 in Sweden, has undoubtedly helped.

Nor has Scotland's progress and discernible self belief been down to bagpipe playing and repeat showings of Brave heart.

"We have watched the film before but not on this trip to England and have no intention of doing so," said Brown. "It may seem like a nice story, but it is simply not true. I don't go in for gimmicks when you are dealing with senior professionals.

"We tried that kind of thing few years ago at under 16 level in the World Youth Cup with some Scottish style rock music. We have taken advice and it is not necessary at this level. In any case, what I don't want to see at Wembley from my players is rushes of blood to the head.

"What I am looking for is concentration, careful passing and calm assurance. I've seen players hyped up before games "in the past and they've then gone out and missed tackles because their minds were elsewhere."

Brown kidded the entire Scottish press corps, and by extension everyone else, when reverting to a flat back four from his customary system of three centre halves in successfully countering Holland's employment of two wingers.

Though he has hinted that he may revert to the established formation on a "horses for courses" policy today, he is again keeping his selection and tactics well guarded. Brown may well repeat his trick of organising an unspecified training session at the National Farmers' Union Mutual Assurance ground in Tibbington, as he did prior to the Dutch game, so as to instruct his players on defensive strategy.

"We have to rehearse on the pitch. We put in an extra session last week which we didn't advertise, and we may have to do so again at a time when there is nobody here - there are a lot of English folk walking about."

A canny Scot, this "former teacher". A pretty fine football manager too, whose time has come.