A NEW BEGINNING

Debutant Tom Brown’s moment of inspiration showed Kilmarnock the way forward on their long-awaited return to top-flight football, his matchwinner against Dundee in 1993 a significant first foot for both club and player. Killie were back in the big time after a gruelling ten years. As for Tom, he was happy just to be there.

Killie’s new hero made his way to the local newsagent, bulging, clanking carrier bag tightly gripped. He was a man on a mission. The day before, his swivel-finish - ‘a chest-trundler’ according to the modest marksman - had grabbed his new club a crucial win. And now to savour the moment anew.

“The next morning, I went down to the shops to get the Sunday papers as normal. We were poor, at the end of the day. So I was taking glass bottles back; ginger bottles, we call them. I was taking them not for the recycling so much as getting the 10p back. The newsagent knew me, and he said, ‘I can’t believe Tam Brown is bringing back ginger bottles to buy papers when he’s in team of the day in the paper that he’s buying!’ I got some slagging for that, as you can imagine.”

Just 24 hours earlier, when stepping onto the pristine Rugby Park turf as a first-time Premier Division number 9, Tom would certainly have reflected on the career-defining role of his iconic manager, Tommy Burns.

“He was my hero growing up. I was always tongue-tied whenever he spoke to me. I was in awe of this guy. Football saved my life if I’m being brutally honest; Tommy Burns did. He gave me that chance to be a full-time professional footballer. I had worked in the shipyards for four years. I was a sheet metal worker to trade but I never enjoyed the job. I was working in a bar part-time, but I wasn’t going anywhere.”

An injury to Bobby Williamson - a fellow honours graduate of the Scottish School of Combative Attackers - gave the new recruit an unexpected opportunity to show what he could do.

“I’d just signed a couple of months before. I did say at that point, ‘I’m going to grab every minute, every day and try to get better, try to get in the team, try to play a game or two’. Kilmarnock had just been promoted and they had players like George McCluskey and Bobby Williamson: excellent professionals and great players. They were holding down the positions up front. I just thought I’d try to do the best I can.

“Fortunately for me, Bobby picked up an injury and was struggling for the first game. I didn’t anticipate starting. I thought I might be on the bench and the manager would go with Ian Porteous up front, supporting George McCluskey. He never said this but I’m assuming the manager thought, ‘He’s shown up well in pre-season, let’s just throw this boy in’. I wasn’t going to leave the field having given anything less that 100%, so that I had no regrets.”

And then it happened.

Mark Reilly’s precise near-post corner was swiftly touched down and rolled into the net, the stadium now a roaring sea of blue scarves and white AT Mays shirts.

“My dream my whole life was to be a professional footballer. And to score on your debut…it was the most amazing feeling. This is a horrible thing now, thinking back, but I remember thinking, ‘I hope this finishes 1-0. I don’t want us to win 4-0 because my goal might get lost in that.’ It’s a totally selfish thing but I felt I was due it, just for that moment.

“You can’t relive something like that, even if you score another goal. Even the Celtic goal – and it’s a really good goal – that first goal, on your debut. And it won us the game. It was the best ever.”

The narrow victory was a crucial one, setting the standard for a season of hard work, relentless pressing and making life uncomfortable for the established Premier Division teams. That said, how much the success of Tom Brown’s move was down to the mercurial Burns’ managerial nous is open to debate.

“I think his intention was that I would be a good backup at some point, not anticipating that I would score on my debut and have a good game. I think I was more a signing for cover and if it didn’t work out then I could easily just drift into the juniors again. I got offered £160 per week with £90 appearance money. It didn’t matter what it was going to be, I was signing anyway for nothing, just to have the opportunity to be a professional footballer. Finance never really came into my football career. I was never paid well; I was never a high earner.”

Tom Brown’s full throttle performances in his four years at Kilmarnock certainly represented value for money – and then some.

Words by Gordon Gillen

This article first appeared in Issue 3 of the Kilmarnock Football Club official magazine of October 2021.