The Scottish border town beloved by elopers witnessed three consecutive promotions to the top flight and UEFA Cup qualification, but by 2008 the Anvils suffered the early death of their benefactor, Brooks Mileson, as the club was liquidated. This is the story of the Gretna marriage that went wrong.
#gretna #scotland #scottishfootball #scottishpremiership
#gretna #scotland #scottishfootball #scottishpremiership
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
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
01:29being told he'd never walk again, then winning the bronze medal at the 1967 English Cross Country
01:34Junior Championships and making somewhere between £50 and £75 million through insurance companies.
01:40Mind you, he had a few goes at business before he got it right. He was director of 14 companies in
01:44his career. To some, Brooks was a dreamer and a philanthropist whose generosity knew no bounds.
01:50For some, Reid Gretna players, who were afforded extravagant lifestyles throughout his tenure at
01:55the club. To 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 in the
02:06Northern Premier League where they'd been for 10 straight years, having failed previously to gain
02:10election to the Scottish pyramid. They'd had a couple of FA Cup runs in their time, but had pretty much
02:14failed to bother historians for the most part. In 2002, one club's demise was another's moment to rise.
02:21Airdrie 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 £20,000 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,
03:09telling the club's manager at the time, Rowan Alexander,
03:11I 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.
03:25That was the springboard, and Brooks began to splash the cash. Practising doctor and prolific striker
03:30Kenny Duker joined from East Fife, and that campaign brought them the league by 20 points,
03:35a plus 101 goal difference, and 38 goals in just 36 games for the good doctor.
03:41There were more high-profile arrivals from big Scottish clubs, and Gretna made it back-to-back
03:45promotions in 2006, and won the league by March of that year. What really caught the public's
03:50attention though, was their run in the Scottish Cup. They beat four First Division sides on their way to
03:56the Hampden Park showpiece to face Hearts, and became the first club ever to do so from the third tier.
04:01They lost the game on penalties after a 1-1 draw, despite the manager going full kilt and sporran
04:06for the occasion. But they did gain entry to the UEFA Cup for the next campaign.
04:11Now you might be thinking that the wider football world was willing them on as the plucky underdog.
04:15Everyone loves a football Cinderella story, right? Well, Gretna proved that this isn't always the case.
04:21Envious glances from elsewhere, and cries of annoyance over the wages they were paying while playing in
04:26front of crowds in the hundreds, meant that the footballing fraternity were waiting for it all to fail.
04:30You might have guessed though, that the Gretna house was in fact built on sand, but we aren't quite
04:35there yet. As the next season rolled around, Gretna were in the second tier and heading into Europe.
04:40They didn't get the glamour tie they'd hoped for though, and got roundly thrashed 7-3 on aggregate
04:45by Derry City in the second qualifying round of the UEFA Cup. If they'd won, they'd have faced Paris Saint-Germain.
04:51Brooks had continued to bankroll the club's endeavours though, and the spending was unrelenting. In came Sir Bobby
04:57Robson's former assistant Mick Wadsworth to run things, and he later said,
05:01I saw more Jeeps in the club's car park than in the Normandy landing. Everything was coming out of
05:06the chairman's pocket though, and while results on the pitch continued to get Gretna nearer to the
05:10top flight, the line of credit was beginning to run out. Things started going wrong when the architect of
05:15their rise, manager Rowan Alexander, was put on gardening leave when their form hit a wobble.
05:20They were top at the time, but Brooks felt it was the end of the road for him. Without Alexander,
05:25Gretna did their best to blow an 11-point lead, and questions were being asked as to whether or not
05:30the club really wanted to make the jump to the SPL. It all came down to a dramatic final day when it
05:35looked like St Johnston under Owen Coyle would pip them to automatic promotion. James Grady scored for
05:40Gretna though, and the helicopter that was en route to present the trophy to Coyle at Hamilton
05:44had to divert to Ross County. The dream was realised for Gretna, but the nightmare was just about to
05:49begin. They'd become the first club to go from bottom to top with three consecutive promotions
05:54in Scotland or England, but they definitely weren't ready for the big leagues. Cries of derision went up
06:00from other clubs over the state of their stadium. It couldn't hold the 6,000 fans required for the SPL.
06:05A deal was reached to share Motherwell's fur park for home games while Raydale was renovated,
06:10but inside the club the realisation was hitting that their benefactor was living beyond his means.
06:15He'd paid for everything for staff and players at the club, but his wealth didn't resemble that of
06:20an oligarch's bottomless pit, or come from a nation state. With an unsustainable business model and no
06:26wholesale recruitment in the summer of 2007, the Gretna bubble very quickly burst. Try as they might,
06:32the team just couldn't compete at the highest level, and they lost 25 of their 38 SPL games,
06:38and the club's infrastructure creaked under the expectations of playing at the top level.
06:42But 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 to
06:52suffer. 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 they
07:26started in the fourth tier, because they couldn't guarantee they could play all their games the next
07:30season. August 2008 brought liquidation, and in November that year, Brooks Myleson died after
07:36suffering a heart attack at home and falling into a pond. His fortune gone, and the club he loved,
07:42now, in oblivion.
07:43So, that's the story of the meteoric rise and stratospheric fall of Gretna FC. Less a failed
07:49marriage in keeping with the town's history, more a spectacular love affair that burned bright,
07:54but brought destruction to all involved.