Jock Brown: People told me it was daft to get involved, but I want to solve Hamilton’s reputation problem

When the invitation came to be the new chairman of his boyhood team Hamilton Academical, Jock Brown refused to let his heart rule his head. 

It was time to polish off some old skills.

Over four decades as a lawyer and football commentator, due diligence became a way of life. 

After poring over the small print of contracts, he’d start boning up on the scoring stats of centre-forwards before another stint in the commentary box for the BBC or STV. 

During a stint as general manager of Celtic, he’d overseen the exhaustive process of recruiting Wim Jansen and Dr Jo Venglos as the club’s head coach.

Now hurtling towards his 80th year, Brown’s friends and family told him to steer well clear. Years of personal experience and gut instinct told him to investigate further.

‘I’d sort of been talking to the guys in charge for six weeks to eight weeks maybe, quite a long time, and doing my own homework,’ he tells Mail Sport.

‘I’ve been asking a lot of questions everywhere and everybody said to me: “Don’t be daft, don’t get involved, no way”.’

Hamilton Accies were a football club with an image problem. Rumours and Chinese whispers pre-date the tenure of current owner Seref Zengin and director of football Gerry Strain, but continue to hamper their efforts to detoxify the Lanarkshire outfit.

In the quest for transparency, Strain invited people to get in touch with their ideas on social media, and Brown was one of the first respondents. 

Spotting the potential, Strain set about talking the 78-year-old out of retirement for one last rodeo.

A degree of caution was wise. In 2018, Accies were scammed out of £1million from their bank account when a fraudster convinced an employee that the club’s money was at risk.

Losing almost every penny they had, Hamilton were the unwitting victims of a ‘vishing’ fraud. 

None of which stopped people from assuming — wrongly, as it turned out — that the club were somehow up to their necks in the scam.

‘I’ve got to say that the reputation has not been good,’ adds Brown. ‘Now, I’m not pointing fingers at the previous regime, I’m not doing it.

‘I’ve no idea what they did or didn’t do, but what I do know is that they didn’t solve the reputation problem afflicting the club.

‘Everything else I’ve nothing to do with — and I’m not interested frankly — but the reputation problem wasn’t solved and it must be solved now.

‘I want people to believe that we are intent on making this a welcoming, professional, honest place for people to come to, and invite supporters to believe this is a place worth supporting.

‘There’s a journey to go on, and the journey has to be conducted properly, with integrity.’

Brown knew how it felt to be the subject of doubt and suspicions among the footballing public.

An ever-present voice in the commentary booth for BBC Scotland, STV and Setanta, he fell victim to West of Scotland syndrome. His club allegiance was queried at every turn.

When Fergus McCann asked him to join Celtic in the late 1990s, Rangers fans interpreted the move as confirmation of what they’d suspected all along. 

A lack of Celtic DNA, meanwhile, caused problems from the start. Their fans suspected an allegiance with the other side of Glasgow.

In reality, Brown’s family had always been Accies daft. 

His PE teacher father Hugh played for the club, between spells with Wolves, Partick Thistle and Queen’s Park. Brother Bob moved to Aberdeen over 30 years ago but remains a diehard. 

When their late and much missed sibling Craig moved to the Granite City to manage the local team, he sparked a family rift by steering the Dons to an early 1-0 win at New Douglas Park.

‘My father’s attitude when we were boys was that he disliked both Rangers and Celtic as clubs because of what he perceived as their sectarianism,’ Brown admits now. ‘And he was at us all the time.

‘On the odd occasion both Celtic and Rangers lost, we were cock-a-hoop. He would come in with the bottles of Irn-Bru and we’d celebrate. 

‘The two of them getting beat at the same time was always the great hope…’

None of this would have endeared him to Celtic fans when he was drafted in to mediate between managing director McCann and Parkhead legend Tommy Burns in 1997.

Keen to adopt a continental model, the general manager-role incorporated performance, personnel, budgeting, staffing and recruitment. 

Recruiting the late Jansen as Burns’ replacement, Brown’s relationship with the Dutchman was testy and fraught, ending in acrimony.

After an abortive attempt to land Egil Olsen as his replacement, Venglos pitched up and lasted longer than he did.

 Blamed by supporters for a defeat to FC Zurich in the UEFA Cup, he was escorted out of Prestwick Airport by police. As pressure built, he left the club in November 1997.

‘What did that teach me?’ he ponders. ‘It taught me one thing — all is not what it seems for a start. But it also taught me how important football is to the fabric of Scottish society.

‘Being in the Celtic mix for a time rubbed that in. It was so important. And it’s very important for our community in Hamilton, for instance.

‘What we’ve got to do, in my view, is integrate into the society, into the community in Hamilton. And make the community believe that it will be worth backing and supporting. Because we are worth it.’

He still reels off the Hamilton forward line of 1956-57 with affection, the names of McLean, Currie, King, Divers and Hastings tripping off the tongue as vividly as the goal descriptions he mastered on television.

‘I have to say, there’s massive warmth towards Hamilton Accies. Internationally as well,’ he insists.

‘I mean, since I’ve been appointed, I’ve had messages from New Zealand, Canada, the Middle East, from people all showing warmth to Hamilton Accies. 

So there is undoubtedly a market. I think there’s something very distinctive about the club that appeals to people.

‘The name makes a big difference. It’s such an unusual name.’

The warmth of expats won’t sustain Accies through a long hard winter. Recently embroiled in disciplinary proceedings with the SPFL over another bank fiasco, the club hope to resolve long-standing ownership issues around New Douglas Park by the end of the year.

 They are also one of seven lower-league clubs challenging a ban on artificial surfaces in the Premiership by the start of season 2026-27.

‘It’s a huge issue,’ explains Brown. ‘The difference with having the kind of pitch we’ve got is that it enables the club to progress in many different ways in the community, given how busy it is and how much it’s used.

‘In the ideal world, of course, we’d all want to play on grass, there’s no doubt about that. But we’re not in the ideal world in Scottish football, the funds are not there to sort out the business model and we have to be practical about that.

‘I understand why some fans want the ban, because it’s not their worry and it’s not their concern. But it’s certainly concerning for all — bar, perhaps, five or maybe six clubs in Scotland.’

The old blood is racing in Brown once more. His only regret is the fact that older brother Craig — the former Scotland manager — didn’t live long enough to see him take the reins at their boyhood favourites.

‘I think he’d be really chuffed for me,’ he speculates. ‘It’s been a year since he left us and the outpouring of emotion was overwhelming.

‘He was my big brother and we didn’t really fall out. Not even when I had to interview him for television in awkward circumstances. 

‘There was that time when Scotland drew 0-0 with Estonia, shortly after that infamous time when they (Estonia) didn’t show up for kick-off.

‘I had to be hard on Craig after that performance and, at the airport after the game, I went to him and I remember I said to him: “You know I had to do that, don’t you?”

‘He said: “Do what”?‘. I said: “Well, I gave you a hard time in my interview”. He asked: “Did you?”.

‘I said: “Well, I think I did”. He said: “Who cares? “That’s the problem?”.

‘We were brothers and fell out all the time. But, you know, when I look back, there was only really one thing we fell out over.

‘When there was a concessional putt at golf, we’d say: “You’re not making me putt that, are you?”.

‘And the answer would always be: “Aye. I am”. That’s brothers…’