In the final, agonising minutes of Scotland’s victory over Haiti at Gillette Stadium on Saturday evening, Gordon Brown stood in the midst of the Tartan Army with his hands clasped tightly behind his head in that time-honoured gesture of a football fan tortured by the fear of what might come to pass.
Brown had stood for 90 minutes in the sultry heat of a New England evening, surrounded by men, women and children with their faces painted blue and white. All around him, the stand ached with desperate longing for the restoration of Scottish pride after so long in the football wilderness.
As Britain’s last Scottish prime minister queued with thousands of fans on his way into the stadium, he became a focus of pride, too. Outside and inside the ground, fan after fan came up to him to have their pictures taken with him. Groups of lads clustered around him for mass selfies. Groups of lads clustered around him for mass selfies.
Most greeted him as if he were an old friend, someone they had not seen for some time, someone they had missed. When John McGinn scored, one guy rushed over and tousled Brown’s hair. One fan shook his hand earnestly and said Brown was his hero.
Brown was never known for being a particularly demonstrative politician but that changes subtly at football, whether that be watching Raith Rovers or Scotland. When the names of the Scotland players were read out an hour or so before match and their faces appeared on the giant screens at each end of the ground, Brown gave a thumbs-up at the mention of each one.
Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown (left) with Daily Mail Chief Sports Writer Oliver Holt (right)
Brown has always been a refreshing antidote to the procession of disingenuous politicians professing love for a game they knew nothing about in order to curry favour with voters
I went to the game with him on Saturday night and when the music to the ‘Bonnie Banks o Loch Lomond’ began to play, he sang along softly. When the two squads came out and gathered around the centre circle in front of their national flags, he nodded at the passion and the beauty of the supporters’ rendition of Flower of Scotland. He said he was proud of the friendliness shown between the Scotland and Haiti supporters.
It was an emotional journey for him to get here, a football journey that has taken almost 70 years. It was a landmark in his life as a football fan. He was there in Genoa at the 1990 World Cup when Scotland last won a match in the tournament, beating Sweden 2-1 and now he had finally witnessed another victory.
And 15 years ago, he had promised his younger son he would take him to a World Cup match when Scotland next qualified. He had started to wonder if he would ever be able to fulfil that promise but now here they were, standing side by side on an occasion they will both cherish for the rest of their lives.
Brown’s own father had taken him to his first Raith Rovers game in 1958, when he was seven. He sold programmes outside the ground in Kirkcaldy to earn ‘a few shillings’. He got into the game for free that way, too, about 20 minutes after kick-off.
‘It taught me about mathematics, economics and finance,’ our former Chancellor of the Exchequer told me once, smiling. Later, after he had become an MP, he persuaded Craig Levein to become Raith manager, helped with the signing of the centre-back Marvin Andrews and intervened to rescue the club from problematic owners.
He remembers listening on the radio to Scotland’s 9-3 demolition by England in 1961. Frank Haffey, who played for Celtic, was the goalkeeper and he emigrated to Australia not long afterwards. Years later, Denis Law went out to Australia for some sort of football engagement and met up with Haffey. Haffey asked him if it was safe for him to come back yet and Law said “no”.’
This was the fourth World Cup where Brown, who was Prime Minister between June 2007 and May 2010, has watched Scotland play
Brown’s footballing hero was the great Scottish midfielder, Jim Baxter, who began his career at Raith Rovers
Brown’s knowledge of the game is encyclopaedic and his enthusiasm infectious. He has always been a refreshing antidote to the procession of disingenuous politicians professing love for a game they knew nothing about in order to curry favour with voters. Brown was never like that.
I sat next to him at a dinner in London 20 years ago and not only was he excellent, warm company but all he wanted to talk about was football. He had found a sports bar in Washington DC, he said, where he loved to sit on Saturday mornings before big International Monetary Fund or World Bank meetings, watching games from Britain on the banks of screens that lined the walls.
I have been to his house outside Edinburgh, too. In his office, on the top floor, he only has two pictures on the wall. Neither is of any of the great statesmen he has met. One is of his children. The other is of his footballing hero, the great Scottish midfielder, Jim Baxter, who began his career at Raith Rovers. When Baxter died in 2001, Brown gave a reading at his funeral in Glasgow Cathedral.
‘Jim Baxter came from Fife and played for Raith Rovers,’ Brown said on Saturday. ‘He started off as a coal miner and his mother was a member of the Labour Party. In that match in 1967, where Scotland beat England after England had won the World Cup, Baxter played brilliantly. I used to watch him when I was growing up but then he got sold to Rangers.
‘I’ve always been a supporter of Raith Rovers and when you see a player like Baxter playing for your local team and then playing in the Scotland shirt, you get an idea of the golden thread that links one with the other.
‘I am a patriot. I feel Scottish football should be given the stages it deserves. That makes you want Scotland to do well. The Scotland team is a very strong reflection of our sense of Scottishness.’
Brown’s knowledge of the game is encyclopaedic and his enthusiasm infectious
Brown has been a lifelong fan of Raith Rovers and was taken to his first Raith Rovers game by his father in 1958
This was the fourth World Cup where Brown, who was Prime Minister between June 2007 and May 2010, has watched Scotland play. He went to every one of their games in Spain in 1982, the 5-2 victory over New Zealand in Malaga, the 4-1 defeat to Brazil in Seville and the 2-2 draw with the Soviet Union in Malaga. David Narey’s opening goal in that game against Brazil, he says, is his favourite moment watching his country play.
‘When you see the scoreboard and it says Scotland 1-0 Brazil, you think you have got a chance,’ he said. ‘But then the Brazilian drumbeat took over the ground and Brazil stepped up. They scored some wonderful goals that day as well. Zico’s free kick was unstoppable.’
He was there in Genoa at Italia 90 for the victory over Sweden and he was at the opening game of the 1998 World Cup when Scotland fell to a narrow defeat to Brazil in the Stade de France.
‘It is the first time I have seen Scotland win at a World Cup for 36 years,’ Brown said after the game, ‘and I think I was more nervous today than I was in 1990. What happened tonight can change the way people think about a country. It has taken so long and it means so much.’
