Despite his troubled personal life there was never any doubting the genius of Gazza the footballer and his erstwhile colleague Terry Butcher, now a Scotland coach, is more qualified than most to comment on the similarities between the mad Geordie and Celtic dynamo Scott Brown. 
- raising the temperature
Brown almost single-handedly raised the tempo of Scotland's performance against Macedonia in Saturday's World Cup qualifier and he also ignited the crowd in the stands before scoring his first international goal to put his side 1-0 up.
"The pair are very similar the more you look at it," said the Scotland assistant boss. "Both players live for football and when they go on the pitch you can see that they love the game. The game means everything to them. Scott is a phenomenal character like Gazza. He's not as mad as Gazza yet but that may come but he's an exceptional talent who you're glad to have in your team. If he's against you he causes you problems. He doesn't cause his own team problems, which is good, and Gazza was the same."
"Gazza would work his socks off the same as Scott," continued Butcher. "Scott's knuckled down and listened to people and learnt a hell of a lot. You have to say that Gordon Strachan, his team-mates, and the coaching staff at Celtic have made him focus on his game. The only dissimilarity with Gazza is Scott's off-the-field antics are nowhere near what Gazza's were. Perhaps he's not as hyperactive as Gazza, but on the field there are lots of similarities. If he adds goals to his game, like he did on Saturday, then you can see that with Gazza as well."
"Gazza was a bit different with his manipulation of the ball and his ability to go one on one." noted the coach. "But Scott certainly works as hard as him. A lot of people maybe didn't see how hard Gazza worked for the team and Scott does that for Celtic and Scotland. We're just glad the injury's not as bad as we feared. It's just great that you've got someone in the team that's got terrific energy but can also upset the opposition with his ability. He has a great confidence and no-one knows how great a player he can be. The best is yet to come from Scott. He's started his career very well."
"He's at a great club, and playing and scoring for his country." added ex-Rangers captain Butcher. "Some people say it doesn't get any better than that, but hopefully there's a lot more to come from him."
The Macedonian team are still spitting feathers after Brown's insistence on competing for a drop-ball which resulted in a corner-kick for the Scots and Butcher admits that the incident may have helped galvanise the Scots whilst contributing to a loss of focus within the Macedonian team.
"I had a bit of a laugh about it as he reminded me of one or two other players from the past who I won't name who liked to get involved in stramashes." he said. "They would do something that then lifts our team and makes the other team lose focus - whether it's through skill, a tackle or backchat. Scott plays to win and he wants to win desperately. He can be a volatile character as we've seen in the past, but he has a measure about him now that's very impressive. He does his talking where it really matters."
"I would say there's a maturity about his game that lets him back off a bit and let others get involved." continued the Englishman. "He had that lovely smile on Saturday when he was surrounded by the Land of the Giants and just got on with it. What was good was that the lads came along and protected him. It continued down the tunnel and everyone was involved. You could see they were more wound up about it than us, so it was a case of getting into the dressing room and then re-focusing on what we had to do in the second half."
"Graeme Souness used to say to us that if a game was a nothing game, then do something to change that." said Butcher. "And he used to do something, whether it was a tackle or a shot, something that lifted the crowd and everybody. You could see the crowd were up for it on Saturday because little Scott was involved against these bigger players. It was great to see and maybe what the game needed. We went into the half-time team talk quite optimistic."