| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Robert Brown[1] | ||
| Date of birth | (1923-03-19)19 March 1923 | ||
| Place of birth | Denny, Stirlingshire, Scotland | ||
| Date of death | 15 January 2020(2020-01-15) (aged 96) | ||
| Place of death | Helensburgh, West Dunbartonshire, Scotland | ||
| Position | Goalkeeper | ||
| Senior career* | |||
| Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) |
| 1939–1946 | Queen's Park | 0 | (0) |
| 1946–1956 | Rangers | 211 | (0) |
| 1956–1958 | Falkirk | 23 | (0) |
| International career | |||
| 1945–1946 | Scotland (wartime) | 5 | (0) |
| 1946–1952 | Scotland | 5 | (0) |
| 1949–1952 | Scottish League | 8 | (0) |
| Managerial career | |||
| 1958–1967 | St Johnstone | ||
| 1967–1971 | Scotland | ||
| * Club domestic league appearances and goals | |||
Robert Brown (19 March 1923 – 15 January 2020) was a Scottish internationalfootball player and manager. He played as agoalkeeper forQueen's Park,Rangers andFalkirk and made five international appearances forScotland. He managedSt Johnstone at club level and the Scotland national team from 1967 to 1971. Brown was inducted into theScottish Football Hall of Fame in 2015.
Brown was born in Anderson Drive, Denny,Stirlingshire. He made his debut as a goalkeeper forQueen's Park in 1939, when he was still attending school.[2] After leaving school, Brown attendedJordanhill College with the intention of becoming aphysical education teacher.[2] He went on to establish himself as the first-choice goalkeeper for Queen's Park in the next two seasons, but like many others at this time, his football career was interrupted by theSecond World War. Brown joined theFleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy, and he initially trained to be a navigator on aFairey Swordfish torpedo plane.[2] He was then transferred to the Navy's physical training department, where he worked as aninstructor.[2] This posting allowed him to play as a guest in thewartime leagues forPortsmouth,Chester,Chelsea andPlymouth Argyle.[1] Brown considered himself fortunate, as five of the six Jordanhill students who had joined the Fleet Air Arm with him died during the war.[2] He continued his teaching studies atPortsmouth College.[2] In his last season with Queen's Park, in 1945–46, he shared the goalkeeper's jersey with another future Scottish internationalRonnie Simpson.[3] It was Brown who was selected to play as the club won a rare trophy, theGlasgow Cup, during that campaign.[4] Due to the wartime conditions he made no officialScottish Football League orScottish Cup appearances in his time with theSpiders, but did play 105 times for the first team.[5]
At the end of the 1945–46 season Brown left Queen's Park forRangers, where he played for ten years. During his time atIbrox he played on a part-time basis while working as a teacher.[2] Brown won threeScottish league championships, three Scottish Cups and twoScottish League Cups, including a domestic treble in1948–49.[6] He played in 296 matches in the three major competitions for Rangers, including 179 in succession,[2] and also won the wartime1946 Victory Cup and another two Glasgow Cups.[7] Brown's status as a part-time player subsequently caused difficulty with the Rangers managerBill Struth, who wanted Brown to leave teaching and play football full-time.[2] He was replaced byGeorge Niven as first-choice goalkeeper in 1952, and only made a few appearances before leaving Rangers in 1956.[2] Brown then moved toFalkirk, where he played for two years before he retired from playing.
Brown played in five wartime internationals for Scotland, with his first appearance coming atVilla Park in February 1945.[8] His strong club form was rewarded with a full international call up and, in January 1946, he made hisScotland debut in aVictory International friendly againstBelgium;[8] this was the first of five full international appearances for Brown, who remains the last amateur player to earn a full cap for Scotland and also the last to do so while a Queen's Park player.[2] He also appeared eight times for theScottish League between 1949 and 1952 while with Rangers.[2][9]
After retiring as a player and leaving his teaching job in 1958, Brown became manager ofSt Johnstone.[2] ThePerth club had finished 11th in theold Second Division in the1957–58 season.[2] Brown guided them to 6th place in his first season, and then promotion as champions in1960.[2]Saints were relegated in1962, but Brown stayed on as manager and won promotion back to the top division in1963 before stabilising them as a top-division club, finishing in mid-table in the next few seasons.[2] In total he managed 393 games for St Johnstone.[10]
Brown became the first full-timeScotland manager in 1967.[2] He was also the first manager to be given full authority to pick the team, which had previously been controlled by aScottish Football Association committee.[2] His first international match as manager was a 3–2 victory over the1966 world championsEngland atWembley, which led to Scots declaring themselves as "unofficial world champions".[2] This game also saw Brown give his goalkeeping understudy from his Queen's Park days, Ronnie Simpson, his international debut at the age of 36. Brown continued as Scotland manager until 1971, but often found his squads depleted by club demands and results suffered accordingly.[2] He won nine of 28 games played, and the team did not qualify for either the1968 European Championships or the1970 FIFA World Cup.[2]
Brown's only active involvement in football after leaving the Scotland job was to scout forPlymouth Argyle.[2]
After finishing with Scotland in 1971 he turned to his business interests outside football.[2][1] Brown and his wife Ruth settled inHelensburgh, where they ran a gift and coffee shop.[2] Ruth died in 1983, aged 59, due to blood cancer.[2] In 2017[11] Brown was retired and still lived in Helensburgh. He was inducted into the Rangers FC Hall of Fame[12] and into theScottish Football Hall of Fame in 2015.[13] Brown was featured in Episode 4A Better World of theBBC Two documentaryBritain's Greatest Generation broadcast in May 2015.[14]
Brown died of natural causes on 15 January 2020 at the age of 96.[6] He was survived by three daughters, Carolyn, Alison and Gillian.[2]
As of 28 March 2015[update]
| Team | From | To | Record | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| G | W | D | L | Win % | |||
| St Johnstone[10] | 1958 | 1967 | 393 | 150 | 81 | 162 | 038.17 |
| Scotland[a] | 1967 | 1971 | 33 | 14 | 8 | 11 | 042.42 |
| Total | 426 | 164 | 89 | 173 | 038.50 | ||
St Johnstone
Scotland
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
