Aside from him being one of the two people who have threatened to sue me, I find big Broon from Troon fascinating.

Gordon Brown's is the fourth telephone number under the B's in my black book of phone numbers, he was, at his best, a fine second row forward for West of Scotland, Scotland, and the British Lions. He arranged my first mortgage, he was the recently retired player annoying us on the box - my role just now - when I played, and is still a well known face around Glasgow. Now, remarkably, Gordon Brown is a full-time after-dinner speaker.

Brown told me from his home, yes, in Troon: ''When I turned 50 on the first of December I thought I would do what I wanted to do now. I had been in the financial industry for 30 years, and I had enjoyed it, but I had built the speaking up so that I could make a living from it.

''Both my wife, Linda, and my daughter, Mardi, have ME, so I want to be able to work at night or at lunch time to spend time with them instead of being away all day every day. Stopping a nine to five job is something I wanted to do.''

What is happening now, according to Brown, is that rugby is getting its share of a phenomenon that has so far appeared to afflict only football and boxing, and that is the down at the heel former superstar. ''I don't want to name the boys concerned, but there really are three or four former greats who are now having a hard time, unemployed, and a bit shabby with drink and money problems.'' says Brown.

''I was doing a lunch for a team which had been picked of the greatest all-time Lions side - I'm in it - and there were some lads there who are struggling. And that I find a tragedy that men who were once so great for Britain are now having hard times.''

However, where the 1974 Lions won their series in South Africa, is there the danger that the '87 Lions overshadow that fact with their own series victory? Not a bit of it says Brown, as the '87 Lions lacked one essential ingredient.

''They just didn't have the same charisma individually as the 1974 Lions.'' he says. ''Nothing I have seen or heard since South Africa this summer has diminished the respect with which the 74 Lions are viewed, and in fact, would you believe it, there is a twenty-fifth anniversary year being organised for the tour, and there are already three major companies vying to be the main sponsors.

''Much of what we will be doing will be for charity. No, I think the great names like Willy John and the others will live on and, in fact, there are those in South Africa who can reel that team off and not the '87 side.''

Now Brown looks on at the Scottish rugby scene and wishes he was part of it, but I sense he wishes it still had some of the attractions and values his era offered. ''I'd love to have been a player now, a full-time rugby player,'' he said.

''At one of the Lions lunches recently I turned to the crowd, showed them the greats along from me at the table, and I asked them what price now for these great players.'' he says.

''But for the first time ever I worry about Scotland and the Five Nations this year. It saddens me that, despite all the work that is being put in, we are not producing the great home-grown players, and you would have to say that the best thing for some of our players now would be to play for clubs in England. We always used to have five great players, we don't seem to now.''

It is not right to end on a low note when speaking to Broonie. I used to be deeply suspicious of him as he seemed to be happy and jokey all the time. Let's end on a story. The press is full of the London Scottish biting incident at the moment. ''I once bit a player.'' said Broonie to me. ''It was a Frenchman, he stuck his fingers in my mouth at Parc des Princes. Well, I had to, didn't I?'' Decent bloke Gordon Brown.