00:00Ever heard the one about the record-breaking team who went from non-league to the top flight and
00:07played European football in five years and then fell into oblivion just two years later? No,
00:13didn't think so. This is a story that makes what's happened at Wrexham in recent years look pretty
00:18normal when you dig into it. It's got everything. A chain-smoking insurance magnate, one of Sir
00:23Bobby Robson's most trusted lieutenants, a free-scoring doctor and much, much more. This
00:29is Gretna, a marriage that went wrong. Welcome to Gretna, historically beloved for aficionados
00:36of matrimony owing to Scotland's more relaxed attitudes to marriage which existed up to 1847.
00:41This small town in the borders has a few other claims to fame. It's got the Loch Marban stone,
00:47it was an important customs post in the 17th century and the factory there made a load of
00:52cordite in World War One to help British firearms. But for a few years it was also the place where
00:57one of the most rapid rises ever in European football history took place that brought Gretna
01:02FC from the English Northern Premier League to the Scottish Premier League via a Scottish Cup final
01:08and an extremely brief sojourn in the UEFA Cup. And it all starts with a man born in a completely
01:14different country from where the club is based, England. This is Brooks John Joseph Myleson,
01:20born as one of five in the Pennywell estate in Sunderland, notable prior to his investment in Gretna,
01:24which we'll get to later, for breaking his back aged 11 after falling into a quarry and being told he'd
01:30never walk again, then winning the bronze medal at the 1967 English Cross Country Junior Championships
01:35and making somewhere between 50 and 75 million pounds through insurance companies. Mind you,
01:40he had a few goes at business before he got it right. He was director of 14 companies in his career.
01:45To some, Brooks was a dreamer and a philanthropist whose generosity knew no bounds. For some,
01:51Reid Gretna players who were afforded extravagant lifestyles throughout his tenure at the club.
01:56To others, he was an egomaniac who left a trail of devastation in his wake.
02:00Anyway, while he was making his millions in Carlisle, across the border Gretna FC were tolling
02:05in the Northern Premier League, where they'd been for 10 straight years, having failed previously to
02:10gain election to the Scottish pyramid. They'd had a couple of FA Cup runs in their time, but had pretty
02:14much failed to bother historians for the most part. In 2002, one club's demise was another's moment to
02:20rise. Airdrie owners folded, despite finishing runners-up in Scotland's second tier that year,
02:25and Gretna won election to play in Scotland at the expense of the newly formed Airdrie United.
02:30The club would enter the league in the Scottish third division. Expectations weren't exactly high,
02:35but at least they wouldn't need to go to England for every away game from now on. At the time,
02:40Gretna averaged crowds of just over 400 at Raydale Park, which isn't actually that bad,
02:45considering only 3,000 people live there. Brooks saw the potential at the club. He'd been pouring
02:51money into supporters' trusts at Stockport, Berwick, Ayr, Dundee and Dundee United, and having failed to
02:57take over Carlisle United, a ÂŁ20,000 donation to Gretna's youth development scheme gave him skin
03:03in the Scottish game. Brooks came to the club with deep pockets and a defined vision, telling the club's
03:09manager at the time, Rowan Alexander, I want to be in the Scottish Premier League in five years.
03:14Conservatively, he'd have called him misguided, but history tells us he was anything but.
03:20Their debut campaign ended with a third-placed finish in the bottom tier in 2004. That was the
03:26springboard, and Brooks began to splash the cash. Practising doctor and prolific striker Kenny Duker
03:31joined from East Fife, and that campaign brought them the league by 20 points, a plus 101 goal difference,
03:37and 38 goals in just 36 games for the good doctor. There were more high-profile arrivals from big
03:43Scottish clubs, and Gretna made it back-to-back promotions in 2006, and won the league by March
03:48of that year. What really caught the public's attention though, was their run in the Scottish
03:52Cup. They beat four First Division sides on their way to the Hampden Park showpiece to face Hearts,
03:58and became the first club ever to do so from the third tier. They lost the game on penalties after a
04:031-1 draw, despite the manager going full kilt and sporran for the occasion. But they did gain entry to
04:09the UEFA Cup for the next campaign. Now you might be thinking that the wider football world was willing
04:13them on as the plucky underdog. Everyone loves a football Cinderella story, right? Well, Gretna proved
04:19that this isn't always the case. Envious glances from elsewhere and cries of annoyance over the wages
04:24they were paying while playing in front of crowds in the hundreds meant that the footballing fraternity
04:28were waiting for it all to fail. You might have guessed though that the Gretna house was in fact
04:33built on sand, but we aren't quite there yet. As the next season rolled around, Gretna were in the
04:38second tier and heading into Europe. They didn't get the glamour tie they'd hoped for though, and got
04:43roundly thrashed 7-3 on aggregate by Derry City in the second qualifying round of the UEFA Cup. If they'd
04:49won, they'd have faced Paris Saint-Germain. Brooks had continued to bankroll the club's endeavours though,
04:54and the spending was unrelenting. In came Sir Bobby Robson's former assistant, Mick Wadsworth,
04:59to run things, and he later said, I saw more Jeeps in the club's car park than in the Normandy landing.
05:05Everything was coming out of the chairman's pocket though, and while results on the pitch continued
05:08to get Gretna nearer to the top flight, the line of credit was beginning to run out. Things started
05:13going wrong when the architect of their rise, manager Rowan Alexander, was put on gardening leave
05:19when their form hit a wobble. They were top at the time, but Brooks felt it was the end of the road
05:23for him. Without Alexander, Gretna did their best to blow an 11-point lead, and questions were being
05:29asked as to whether or not the club really wanted to make the jump to the SPL. It all came down to a
05:34dramatic final day when it looked like St Johnston under Owen Coyle would pip them to automatic
05:38promotion. James Grady scored for Gretna though, and the helicopter that was en route to present the
05:42trophy to Coyle at Hamilton had to divert to Ross County. The dream was realised for Gretna, but the
05:48nightmare was just about to begin. They'd become the first club to go from bottom to top with three
05:53consecutive promotions in Scotland or England, but they definitely weren't ready for the big leagues.
05:58Cries of derision went up from other clubs over the state of their stadium. It couldn't hold the
06:036,000 fans required for the SPL. A deal was reached to share Motherwell's fur park for home games,
06:08while Raydale was renovated, but inside the club, the realisation was hitting that their benefactor
06:13was living beyond his means. He'd paid for everything for staff and players at the club, but his wealth
06:19didn't resemble that of an oligarch's bottomless pit, or come from a nation state. With an unsustainable
06:24business model and no wholesale recruitment in the summer of 2007, the Gretna bubble very quickly
06:30burst. Try as they might, the team just couldn't compete at the highest level, and they lost 25 of
06:36their 38 SPL games, and the club's infrastructure creaked under the expectations of playing at the top
06:42level. But forgetting all the players' boots for a game against Rangers brought some gallows humour at the
06:47time. Rumours of missed payments for wages became commonplace, and the owner's health was beginning
06:52to suffer. Aged just 60, he was admitted to hospital with a brain infection following successive stomach
06:58operations and suffering chronic fatigue syndrome. And that was the beginning of the end for Gretna.
07:03Without their benefactor, they were staring into financial abyss. They were quickly placed into
07:08administration, given a 10-point deduction, and liquidation looked inevitable. Wadsworth even
07:13sold his car to pay the players. Their only SPL campaign ended in April 2008 in front of 431 fans,
07:20and saw them amass just 13 league points. Gretna's financial issues meant they'd go back to where
07:25they started in the fourth tier, because they couldn't guarantee they could play all their
07:29games the next season. August 2008 brought liquidation, and in November that year, Brooks
07:35Myleson died after suffering a heart attack at home and falling into a pond. His fortune gone,
07:40and the club he loved, now, in oblivion. So that's the story of the meteoric rise and stratospheric fall
07:47of Gretna FC. Less a failed marriage in keeping with the town's history, more a spectacular love
07:52affair that burned bright, but brought destruction to all involved.
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