In a career sprinkled with sliding doors moments, this was the one which would eventually change everything. For both Scott Brown and Celtic.
Brown’s fledgling Parkhead career had reached a crossroads following the departure of Gordon Strachan as manager. And although an old mentor in Tony Mowbray had arrived on the scene as the new boss, within six months Brown had been written off as £4.4million worth of dead wood. In December of 2009, Mowbray pulled the injured 24-year-old aside at the club’s Lennoxtown HQ and instructed him to find himself a new club in the January window.
When Record Sport broke the bombshell news, Celtic issued an angry denial and went to the lengths of releasing a statement in Brown’s name, denying that any such conversation had taken place. On February 2, Brown returned to action from Mowbray’s bench with 16 minutes remaining in a 1-0 defeat at Kilmarnock. To his astonishment, he was given the armband for the first time before stepping onto the pitch.
And now, speaking in the brand new Off The Record podcast, the man who would go on to captain the club to nine successive league titles, has opened up on the decision which altered the course of history. Brown said: “I understand new managers come in and want to bring in their own players. But I was there to prove a point.
“Just because the manager said to me, ‘Yeah, you can leave’ that was me. I was like, ‘Yeah sure I can! I’ll make sure I’m still here. I’ll be playing, mate. Week in week out!’
“Then, at the end of the window, somehow I ended up becoming captain. I don’t know how that worked! But it happened.
“Incredible moments like that change you. I maybe wasn’t playing my best and Peter Grant (Mowbray’s assistant) said he’d drive me anywhere! But that’s one thing I’ll never regret, that’s for sure.
“I stayed, I fought for my place and I showed everybody I deserved to be in the starting XI. I don’t remember Tony dropping me that much after that!
“I came back from injury, I came on, got the captaincy and played at left back! Maybe he didn’t fancy me as a centre midfielder! He maybe wanted to bring his own people in or thought he could get better at Celtic which is fine. It never really bothered me.
“A lot of managers came in and probably didn’t fancy me at the time. But I stayed there a lot longer than most managers did. And I stayed because of my willingness to work hard, to improve and to learn the way they wanted me to play.I would do whatever I could do just to make the team better.”
Mowbray didn’t make it to the end of that season. Brown would go on to become the second most decorated captain in the club’s history - with a trophy haul second only to the late great Billy McNeill.
And Brown, now cutting his own teeth in management at Fleetwood Town, attributes it all to Mowbray’s mid-season meltdown. He went on: “I think he probably offered it to 10 other people. I was probably the only one who said ‘aye’ at the time!
“But I’ll always be fully appreciative to Tony for giving me that armband, whether he wanted to give me it or not. It gave me the opportunity to maybe grow up a little bit, to become more of a man.
"To become a proper leader on the park and in the dressing room as well. Because everyone knew what I was - I was full of energy, a bit wild in the dressing room and enjoyed some good banter.
“But as soon as I stepped over that white line I was 100 per cent serious. I wanted to win. I couldn’t accept getting beat and I’m similar now as a manager.
“It shows you there are always going to be little speed bumps, no matter what. Nobody’s career is going to be all plain sailing. Everyone thought Messi was always going to stay at Barcelona but somehow he ends up leaving the club.
“These things happen - you can’t write everything in the stars and you can’t always think you’ll be the first choice on the team sheet. Whether I was or I wasn’t, I had to work to earn my place. I made sure I did that every day. I never really gave another manager the chance to drop me.”
And yet Brown also reveals how different his career could have turned out had he not resisted Walter Smith’s attempts to take him to Rangers from Hibs in the first place, back in the summer of 2007. He recalled: “Both bids had been accepted so it was up to me as to where I was going to go.
“So I went and met Walter and I went and met Ally (McCoist). I knew them from the Scotland set-up and obviously I knew Tommy (Burns) as well.
“When I went to meet RangersI was getting text messages from Tommy saying, ‘Come on wee man, you know the place to go! You know where your heart belongs, I’ll look after you,’. It was the usual Tommy.
“Then I went to meet Celtic down in London and I was getting all the same stuff from Coisty! It was like you were jumping in between two of them - two great guys and two great coaches. I still get on well with Coisty now when I speak to him.
“But as soon as I went down, I spoke to Gordon (Strachan), I spoke to Peter (Lawwell) and I spoke to Tommy and I knew there was only one place that I wanted to go - the way they treated me and the way they saw me playing in the team. What they expected of me for the next four, five years of my contract.
“Gordon set demands on me straight away. He told me how to go and play in different positions. He said, ‘You’re not just going to run about like a headless case wee man. I’m going to turn you into a holding midfielder or an attacking midfielder - whatever you want. But you’re not getting a free role like you did at Hibs.
"You’re going to understand the game and you’re going to learn the game as well,’. For me to get that understanding from a top quality player as Gordon was - and a good manager as well, it meant a lot.”
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