Scottish journeyman Kenny Brannigan has gone from Bridgeton to Beijing

The only one of the Seven New Wonders of the World that Kenny Brannigan hasn’t seen in person, he says, is the Taj Mahal.

He’s gone from breaking jaws and fighting with fans, to the grandeur of Rome’s Colosseum. From a brawl in a Saltcoats nightclub, to the mystique of Machu Picchu, Peru’s lost city. From a suicide attempt and losing his business, to coaching kids in Beijing and visiting the Great Wall of China.

It has been quite the adventure for a Scottish football journeyman, who spent time with 14 clubs after signing for Queen’s Park in 1982.

Brannigan was, by his own admission, no-nonsense, win-at-all-costs. He was a man of the times, a product from the streets of Glasgow’s Bridgeton where no quarter was given.

“A square go? If you come and fight on my turf, you’re going to get battered,” he says of his mentality as a player. “At three o’clock on a Saturday, I was wound up to batter everybody.

“You go out and do the things you’re good at. I never got beat in the air. The boy that comes to mind is [Steven] Thompson from Rangers – I won every single header for Airdrie at 38 years of age against him playing for Dundee United. I retired two games later and he signed for Rangers a few weeks after that.”