DREAMWORKS PRODUCTION

THE voice is unmistakable. The phone manner would see him sacked from any other ticket office in the country.

Not in Gretna, though. Not when he IS the ticket office.

"Whaddayameeen, why do ah want yah contact noomba?" The Mackem-infused cackle echoes around the Portakabin.

"In case yah bloody card bounces, man, why else? In fact, ah'll be takin' 200 quid off you even for askin' such a stupid question.

"And listen, is it true you eat your babies up in Edinburgh?"

Customer service, the Brooks Mileson way. Thanks for calling (you b******!).

Then again, the fact he's even SPEAKING to Hearts fans let alone selling them the last few of his precious £35 briefs tells you Saturday is no ordinary Scottish Cup Final and the Gretna owner is no ordinary club custodian.

Can you imagine Vladimir Romanov jotting down credit card numbers and noising up the customers just for the craic?

Didn't think so.

But Mileson wouldn't have it any other way.

He might own Gretna, he might have ploughed millions in with neither the hope nor the desire of a return - but as far as he's concerned they owe him nothing except the joy he takes from being part of it.

And that's exactly what he'll be feeling when he takes his spot in the stand alongside his mates on Saturday, a mile away from the pomp of the posh seats.

After giving the side's trip to Spain this week a miss due to a hospital appointment and a scan in his long-running battle with M.E. he's thrown himself into the day-to-day graft back home.

And he grinned: "I can do this with a small club - we're all in it together. Me and chief executive Graeme Muir have been on the phone all the time taking the ticket orders.

"But it's only the Hearts fans who are surprised when they hear it's me. Everyone else here knows what I'm like.

"It's the best way to have banter with the fans, a bit of craic.

"And if people are wondering why we're selling our tickets to Hearts fans it's because after all those I've set aside for the kids down here everyone has what they need.

"So I don't have a problem seeing them go to Hearts fans.

"They'll be sitting in our bit but it won't be a problem. It just won't be that kind of final, will it?"

And that sums up Mileson to a T. Always the positive, always the greater good.

And who can blame him when you've generated the kind of feelgood story even a Hollywood script writer would have deemed too much of a fantasy to commit to paper?

Four years in the league, back-to-back titles, Scottish Cup Final and guaranteed European football next season before a ball is even kicked on Saturday.

The club motto on every letterhead says living the dream but Mileson sighs: "I'm not even sure this was part of the dream.

"It has been incredible and I really don't think we realise what we've achieved here.

"Everyone else has but we're too busy getting on with the job.

"But we'll reflect in the summer, the same as we did last year when it dawned on us what we'd done breaking all these records in the Third Division."

Now Gretna have gone through the Second Division the same way and although the resources required to make the same impact next season in Division One will be significantly bigger Mileson has no intention of ever reining in boss Rowan Alexander.

Asked if he had a cut-off point, a limit to what he would spend in pursuit of the dream - a day when the word "NO" would pass his lips for the first time - he said: "That's not the way we work.

"Rowan tells me what we need and I do it. Simple as that.

"We work together. The gaffer is my partner and we're building a club, not just a team.

"Would it ever be a stretch too far financially? Nah. I'd just sell another company.

"We've taken something from scratch, Rowan and I, and we're building. And if you want to build a club you have to put capital into it before you see any returns.

"All we had was a ground. We started from scratch and you have to put the resources in.

"But you don't go into football expecting to be self financing. And what else do you have money for?

"I get a huge amount of enjoyment from it. People spend money on other things, I spend mine on football.

"Hopefully in a few years when we're in a higher league they won't be so reliant on me but until then Rowan will get what he wants."

But Brooks bristles at the notion Gretna are only where they are because of his dough and not Alexander's ability.

He revealed he has already had one approach for his boss's services from higher up the leagues - but he insists it will take something HUGE to shift him from the Borderers' inexorable climb to the top.

Mileson said: "Rowan doesn't get the credit for what he's done here.

"I've already had one phone call - I told them to f*** off!

"If I thought it was something major I wouldn't stand in his way.

"But although you should never say never I can never see the gaffer leaving here. He started when this place was on its knees, doing everything - including fighting off the bailiffs.

"I wouldn't have minded but they were trying to seize his lawn mower and it wasn't even the club's, he had borrowed it from his dad!

"But this place is in his heart and soul as much as it's in mine. I can't imagine him not being here and it would take something extra special to move him out of the manager's chair.

"The call I did take wasn't special enough - they don't deserve him, we do."

And although Mileson knows it's maybe too much of a pipedream to follow Vladimir Romanov - a man he has a huge admiration for - and split the Old Firm he refuses to put a ceiling on what Gretna can do.

He shrugged: "We're a small club - we'll ALWAYS be a small club. But that doesn't mean we can't be a small, professionally run, successful club.

"That's the fun of being here. It would be difficult to bring our culture into a Celtic or a Hearts or a Rangers.

"Is there a limit to what we can achieve? Ask the gaffer.

"Obviously we'll get to the SPL one day, no doubt about that, and we'll probably find our level there but who knows? I wouldn't put anything past him."

Taken from the Sunday Mail