Source: Team_Talk
Brown frustrated by Old Firm ban
The Celtic midfielder picked up his sixth caution of the season in the Scottish Premier League against Falkirk last week - his 22nd yellow card in two seasons.
Due to the SFA's cumulative punishment system, which takes previous offences into account, Brown will serve a two-game ban, ruling him out of the May 9 game against Rangers, which has been scheduled for the second weekend after the SPL splits in to two.
"It's a bit of a nightmare because I've been done for what I did last season," said Brown, speaking at Hampden to launch the Cheque Centre/PFA Scotland Player of the Year awards, for which he is nominated alongside Parkhead team-mate Gary Caldwell and Rangers duo Pedro Mendes and Steven Davis.
"You think, 'Surely to God, that was last season and it's over and done with and you start afresh this season', but it doesn't work like that.
"I spoke to a few of the lads and they said that it might change next season but we will see how it goes.
"I thought the Old Firm game might have been scheduled for the first game after the split but hopefully it doesn't matter.
"The gaffer will put out a strong team anyway.
"I knew if I picked up another booking I would be banned.
"It was 10 or 11 games since I had picked up my last one so I was trying
not to mistime my tackles.
"That has been hard but I have been tackling quite well - which is a change."
Brown refused to become embroiled in the saga surrounding Scotland team mates Barry Ferguson and Allan McGregor, which took another twist this morning.
The Rangers duo were ultimately banished from international football for the furore surrounding their late-night drinking session following last month's World Cup qualifying defeat in Holland.
Brown, along with three other Scotland players, were alleged also to have been drinking at Scotland's Cameron House Hotel base in Loch Lomond but had reportedly gone to their rooms earlier.
After being sensationally dropped for the game against Iceland three days later, Ferguson and McGregor did nothing to help their cause by appearing to make gestures as they sat on the bench against at Hampden.
Rangers boss Walter Smith stripped Ferguson of the Rangers captaincy and suspended both players for a fortnight but made it clear, in an off-the-record briefing to a select number of newspapers, that their days at Ibrox were over.
However, in a surprise move on Thursday, the Light Blues' boss welcomed both back in to the fold after hitting out at the SFA for their handling of the drinking incident by ignoring the four other players who were reportedly involved.
Brown would only issue a "no comment" when the subject was broached.
Fellow nominee Caldwell refused to go into the rights or wrongs of the decisions made by Rangers and the SFA but admits the Ibrox club have been handed a boost by the return of two of their top players as they try and overcome the champions' one-point lead at the top of the table.
"Definitely, they are good players and they have been at the club for a long while," Caldwell said.
"They will come back in and they will be an influence on their team in the run-in to the end of the season."
The former Hibernian player believes his nomination from his fellow professionals has gone a long way to silencing the critics, including many Celtic fans, who claimed he had not been good enough to play for the Parkhead club when he moved there in the summer of 2006.
"It's great to be recognised and I am delighted to be in the final four," he said.
"I went to Celtic to become a better player and be challenged, and I was challenged.
"I made mistakes but I became stronger and have become a better player and I have proved that I am good enough to play for Celtic.
"A lot of people wrote me off and said I wouldn't do it but I proved then wrong.
"You have to listen to the people that matter.
"In this country, there is a lot of voices but you have to block them out.
"If you listen to them then your head will get scrambled.
"I listened to the manager and he stood by me and hopefully I repaid the faith he showed in me."
Celtic 2/7, Draw 9/2, Aberdeen 9/1
