How the collected wisdom of  former Celtic bosses is driving Scott Brown in bid to become as successful in the dugout as he was on the pitch

The transformation of Scott Brown is not restricted to the length of his hair. The shaven-headed Celtic warrior has morphed gently into a hirsute manager of Ayr United. This change, of course, is merely physical.

Brown has always been a work in progress in other areas. It continues. The hyper Fife laddie became a respected leader within Celtic. The player who was once famously pictured in deep contemplation with a pizza became an exemplar of how to treat one’s body. The seemingly instinctive buzzbomb has become a thoughtful coach. The boy who was once dismissed as ‘not aggressive enough’ became a fearsome combatant.

He reflects on all of this and more in a conversation in a room in Somerset Park. Brown has arrived at Ayr United as head coach by way of an outstanding career at Hibernian and Celtic and a typically tough introduction to life as a manager. A promising season at Fleetwood Town was followed by a winless run of six games and Brown and his assistant, Steven Whittaker, were sacked in September of last year.

‘It’s a ruthless, brutal game. You can get sacked after six games. That’s what happens. But you have to try to work hard and try to make the lads enjoy it here. You have to have a fun aspect,’ he says.

He is aware that enjoyment is a by-product of hard labour. There are various elements to the Brown story but it is underpinned by a work ethic that has run through his career with a pulsating consistency.

The past is a different country, one that Brown is reluctant to visit. But it is inhabited by home truths.

‘I am not a big one to look back or even talk about my career,’ he says. ‘I don’t like telling people or players: “I remember me doing this”. It’s in the past for a reason. If someone wants to talk to me about Celtic or Hibs, then I will talk to them about that, I have a lot of time for both clubs. But I won’t bring it up.’ This applies particularly in conversations with his players.

‘I want to make these lads the best they can be. You don’t say: “This is how I did it”. It’s different. They have to be their own person, have their own personality. You can be whoever you want to be on the park, dictate, be shy or whatever. But the best players are the ones who dictate. The others can hide in the shadows.’

It is powerful stuff and it carries the imprimatur of a player who won 22 major trophies at Celtic, a league cup at Hibs, earned 55 caps and yet was regularly dogged by criticism.

‘People don’t know me so you get some stuff — Scott Brown was arrogant, he wanted to fight the world, he didn’t care about anybody,’ he says. ‘But I know I am nothing like that. I am quite relaxed and I like a bit of banter. I could be wild but I l knew how to switch on.’

He experienced early rejection before going to school with a succession of managers. He may not be comfortable talking about this past but he relaxes into it with an easy fluidity.

‘I was always playing football as a kid,’ he says. The Hill of Beath primary pupil made a breakthrough when playing for a Fife select side. ‘It was nothing like the set-up kids have now,’ he adds, with the experience of having two sons at Hibs and one at Spartans.

‘My mum was basically running me, my sister and brother around. I was playing on red ash.’ He was obviously good and equally as obviously small. ‘I was tiny. Tiny,’ he says. ‘I was told I wasn’t big enough, I wasn’t aggressive enough, I wasn’t strong enough. I was let go by Rangers when I was 13. But I was always fit. I was always competitive.’

These traits have survived his playing career. At 39, he says: ‘If I run now, I have to beat the guy I am running with. I liked pre-season. I wanted to be at the front of the runs, at the front of all the drills, to try to prove a point. I was going to do whatever it took to get into the manager’s team, whether he liked me or not.’

The first big move came when he joined Hibs at 15. ‘I was not good at school and the head teacher at Beath High was with me when I signed for Hibs,’ he recalls. ‘I still have the photie of that. The school thought it was a great opportunity for me to go into Hibs a couple of days a week.’

Brown was still small. ‘I didn’t start growing until I was 16,’ he says. But he was put into matches with older boys. ‘I was up against big units in the under 18s, under 20s, whatever. One of the guys was nicknamed Rhino and I was like the side of a fiver.’

Brown continued to work, to go to the gym. But he was still hardly a contender for a stunt double in Rambo. Yet, a first team player of that era remembers his first sight of the Fife youngster. ‘He started this game and I thought who is the wee laddie? He rattled into a tackle right away and I remember thinking he wouldn’t fail on attitude.’

He did not. He was part of a golden generation of Hibs youngsters that included Derek Riordan, Garry O’Connor, Kevin Thomson and Whittaker. He won the league cup in 2007 with Hibs but this was merely the appetiser to a veritable feast of triumph at Celtic. He joined the Parkhead club in 2007 for £4.4million, working at Celtic under Gordon Strachan, Tony Mowbray, Ronny Deila, Neil Lennon and Brendan Rodgers. He is candid on all. He listened, he worked, he learned. ‘They were all different. I got them at different times in my career,’ he says.

He started making notes under Strachan and continued to do so for the rest of the career. ‘They are all on my computer,’ he says. He came to an understanding of what worked and what he believed did not work. He still consults with Whittaker after a training session to assess what they did. ‘You have to be honest about what worked and what did not,’ he says.

Strachan was an early major influence. ‘I came from the whirlwind at Hibs,’ says Brown. ‘He obviously had a great understanding of the position so he knew what he wanted. Stracho played a 4-4-2. The first training session he told me: “You are not staying in position”. He would set up zones I had to work in, I do it with the lads now. He would say: “This is your area. Get the ball, keep it and break box to box. When we lose it, get your a*** back into position”.’

He adds: ‘Celtic was different. I had to jump a level. There were top quality players who had to win. I learned quickly. I had to.’

He had mixed experiences under Mowbray and Deila. ‘We won a few things but we went downhill on roller skates,’ he says of the latter. But, again, he learned. Mowbray gave him the club captaincy and he remains grateful. ‘I was quiet then and I had to grow into the role,’ he says. ‘I suppose I became captain because there were few Scots in the dressing-room and nobody else was ready. But I owe a lot to Tony for that. He knew me from Hibs and gave me that opportunity.

‘Instead of that quiet kid, instead of being a bit of a clown, I knew I had to drive the dressing room. I knew I had to help set standards. Managers ended up trusting me. They didn’t have to come into the dressing room. I only go into the dressing room here on match days or when I am walking through to head somewhere else.’

He knew, too, that he had to become fitter when Deila departed. ‘We got stronger under Lenny,’ he says. ‘He is very, very good on the mentality of the game. The way he got up for games was outstanding. He lived and breathed Celtic.’

Of Rodgers, he says simply: ‘Brendan is a genius. He put a couple of years on my career. He changed the mentality. He told us this was our job, this was our responsibility, this is what we were 24/7. We had to be the best we could be. It was all body fats, what you put in your body, how you socialised. It was 100 per cent dedication.

‘He was telling us that people can see you when you are out and about. How do you look? How does the club look because of what you? How do we drive the club forward? Everything was based on the best you could be.’

It is fascinating to look back on Rodgers’ first pre-season of 2016. Brown and the Northern Irishman met in London and many speculated that this summit would portend the end of the Fifer’s major role at the club. Was this a conversation intimating that Brown would be given a part-time playing role with an emphasis on coaching?

The reality was different. The meeting was Rodgers anointing Brown as his leader on the pitch. The captain led the club from the front and to spectacular success.

‘It was probably the best part of my career. It was a time when I was coming to the end and I wanted to learn more, I wanted to understand more,’ he says. ‘I knew I was working with a top manager. This guy almost won the league at Liverpool and he had a fantastic team at Swansea. You think: “This is the best time to learn. Take much as you can”.

‘I still base a lot of training sessions on what I learned from him. I have a lot of stuff from all the managers down the years. It’s a learning business.’

It set him up for his next move. ‘When I was leaving Celtic, I knew what I wanted to do. That’s why I went to Aberdeen, to get the opportunity to coach. I was analysing games, watching everything on the computer, forming player clips.’

The interview is nearing a conclusion and Brown glances to a television screen which is frozen on pause. A group of players pose as if statues. Whittaker and Brown have been assessing a match. There is an unspoken eagerness to get back to work.

One last question. What has he learned about himself after more than two decades at the top of the game, after seasons of confrontations, controversy and triumph?

‘I am more mellow than I thought I was,’ he says. ‘I still have that switch and it trips now and then, But he holds me back, keeps me in check.’ He is glancing at Whittaker. But in every other way he is looking at the future.