Scotland’s memorable visit to England in the summer of 1996 was the first major tournament of one young sports writer’s career. A Scotland manager with a scholar’s knowledge of history made it even more special. Two weeks before Euro 96 started I was ordered at gunpoint by a Scottish newspaper to go and fetch Craig Brown, do a one-hour sit-down interview with him, and also arrange for a scenic photo of the Scotland manager for a pretty huge piece in the paper.
I can’t remember why exactly, but Brown and I ended up at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery in Glasgow, where, of all things, he was to be photographed beneath Salvador Dalí’s famous Christ of Saint John of the Cross. “Why do you want me to pose for a picture underneath this?” Brown asked me. “I don’t know,” I replied.
Perhaps I thought that, at the imminent Euros, Brown was about to be crucified. We repaired for some lunch where, not for a first time, Brown began to probe me about my church background, and the fact that – he thought this unusual for a sportswriter – I possessed a Divinity degree. “Right, so you’re just the man to understand this,” he said erroneously.
“This Euro tournament coming up is going to be all about the Medes and the Persians. That’s how I see it from Scotland’s point of view.” I was hurriedly racking my brains.
.. the Medes and the Persians? This was some sort of blurry Greek history to me.
“Oh aye, aye, the Medes and the Persians,” I said to Brown, scarcel.
