Celtic legend reflects on Tommy Burns' selflessness in his final moments and why he chose Hoops over Rangers

Scott Brown has opened up about the “amazing moment” when late Celtic legend Tommy Burns sent flowers to his terminally ill sister just hours before he lost his own battle with cancer.

Parkhead hero and former Hoops captain Brown has paid a glowing tribute to his friend and mentor who was “still thinking of others” right up until the end of his life. Celtic legend Burns - who was influential in bringing Brown to Celtic from Hibs - died of skin cancer at the age of 51 in May 2008. Two weeks later Scott’s younger sister Fiona, who was also suffering the same illness, tragically passed away at only 21.

Speaking on the Let Me Be Frank podcast, Brown recalled the remarkable gesture, admitting: “My sister was unwell when Tam passed away. Within a couple of days she got flowers from Tommy Burns saying, ‘thinking of you’. To my wee sister. So right up until his last moment he was always thinking of other people – that’s the kind of guy he was, he was a lovely human being who wanted the best for everybody. No matter what he was going through or what pain he was in, he was still thinking of someone else, which is an amazing thing.”

Brown, who has taken unbeaten Ayr Utd to the top of Scottish Championship in his first full season in charge, grew close to Burns when he broke into the Scotland team and Tommy was assistant manager under Walter Smith .And Burns was also on the Celtic coaching staff under Gordon Strachan, when Brown made the switch from Easter Road for £4.4 million.

Meanwhile, Brown revealed Rangers tried to sign him as well – but their choice of location to hold hush-hush talks was far less impressive than the venue Celtic chose for their meeting with the then rising star. Asked about that decision, Brown quipped: “I think I chose alright. Eh? I met Walter, Ally (McCoist) and David Murray in a car park in Sighthill in Glasgow, underneath the flats, sitting in a Land Rover and blethered away to them.

“Then Celtic phoned to ask if I could speak to them and Hibs accepted the bid. They flew me down to London to Dermot (Desmond’s) place. And I was looking around thinking ‘slightly better than Sighthill, this!’

“I got on really well with Coisty and Walter and being at Scotland with Tam at the time as well, it was really good banter. But Tommy was texting me saying ‘wee man, come on, you know you want to come to us – we’ll make sure you’re alright and we’ll build the team around you.’ And I got on really well with Strachan, and I knew the way he wanted to play, and he wanted to build the team around myself, Aiden (McGeady) and all the young players that were there.

“So I just felt it was the right place at the right time to go to a club that was in the Champions League, that was competing all the time and to be fair we did well in the Champions League for the first couple of seasons.”

Describing how important Burns was to the whole mood at Celtic back then, Brown adds: “We ended up going through on penalties in the Champions League and Tam was diving on top of everybody, those are great memories. And him texting away and having all the banter and chat with everybody.”

Burns was the driving force behind the state-of-the-art training centre at Lennoxtown which opened in October 2007. Brown recalls: “He wasn’t at Lennoxtown that long but when he was there he was the life and soul of that whole dressing room and at Celtic Park before Lennoxtown was built.

“He was brilliant and Gordon probably stayed for that third year because of what he meant to him. It just shows you how much he meant to everyone at that club and there’s still pictures of him up at Lennoxtown. Fair play to him for what he did for the club and as a person there was nobody better.”