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.
03:49What really caught the public's attention though, was their run in the Scottish Cup.
03:53They 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.
04:01They lost the game on penalties after a 1-1 draw, despite the manager going full-kilt
04:06and sporran for 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.
04:48If 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.
04:56In came Sir Bobby Robson'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.
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.
05:13Things started going wrong when the architect of their rise, manager Rowan Alexander,
05:17was put on gardening leave when their form hit a wobble. They were top at the time,
05:22but Brooks felt it was the end of the road for him. Without Alexander, Gretna did their best to
05:26blow an 11-point lead, and questions were being asked as to whether or not the club
05:30really wanted to make the jump to the SPL. It all came down to a dramatic final day when
05:35it looked like St Johnston under Owen Coyle would pip them to automatic promotion.
05:39James 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,
05:47but the nightmare was just about to begin. They'd become the first club to go from bottom to top
05:53with three consecutive promotions in Scotland or England, but they definitely weren't ready
05:57for the big leagues. Cries of derision went up from other clubs over the state of their stadium.
06:02It couldn't hold the 6,000 fans required for the SPL. A deal was reached to share Motherwell's
06:07fur park for home games while Raydale was renovated, but inside the club, the realisation was hitting
06:13that their benefactor was living beyond his means. He'd paid for everything for staff and players at
06:18the club, but his wealth didn't resemble that of an oligarch's bottomless pit or come from a nation
06:23state. With an unsustainable business model and no wholesale recruitment in the summer of 2007,
06:28the Gretna bubble very quickly burst. Try as they might, the team just couldn't compete at the highest
06:34level and they lost 25 of their 38 SPL games, and the club's infrastructure creaked under the
06:40expectations of playing at the top level. But forgetting all the players' boots for a game
06:45against Rangers brought some gallows humour at the time. Rumours of missed payments for
06:49wages became commonplace, and the owner's health was beginning to suffer. Aged just 60,
06:54he was admitted to hospital with a brain infection following successive stomach operations and suffering
06:59chronic fatigue syndrome. And that was the beginning of the end for Gretna. Without their benefactor,
07:04they were staring into financial abyss. They were quickly placed into administration,
07:08given a 10-point deduction and liquidation looked inevitable. Wadsworth even sold his car to pay the
07:14players. Their only SPL campaign ended in April 2008 in front of 431 fans and saw them amass just
07:2113 league points. Gretna's financial issues meant they'd go back to where they started in the fourth
07:26tier, because they couldn't guarantee they could play all their games the next season. August 2008 brought
07:32liquidation and in November that year, Brooks Myleson died after suffering a heart attack at home and
07:38falling into a pond. His fortune gone and the club he loved now in oblivion. So that's the story of the
07:45meteoric rise and stratospheric fall of Gretna FC. Less a failed marriage in keeping with the town's history,
07:51more a spectacular love affair that burned bright but brought destruction to all involved.
08:02years of the future, we are very proud of the future.
08:08I've been in the future of the history of the graffiti goes down inril blocks.
08:13I'm going to stay the same as working on the other side of the building here.
08:18I'm here to vertebrae, me to stay the same as working on the ground.
08:22I'm in the same place where I got to stay the same as being.
08:24So that is the same reason I am here.
08:27This seems like putting your hands up couldn't be a bit compliqué.
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