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Showing posts from May, 2018

Bogie Broon has the last laugh

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Clackmanan Juniors with Bogie Broon 2nd from left in back row. Taphophilia - enthusiasm for cemeteries and graves. It looked easy. Too easy. After a year of researching Bogie Broon and attempting to restore the legend of a lost Alloa hero,  I intended to finish the journey by paying my respects in Clackmannan Cemetery. What better way to spend the afternoon before Alloa's crunch play-off semi-final against Raith Rovers? The bus rolled through the villages of West Fife: Newmills, High Valleyfield, Kincardine, once mining communities of the sort in which Bogie Broon had lived and worked. In the shadow of the disused Longannet Power Station we passed the grave of William Brown, one time teammate of Bogie and the man who had succeeded him as Wasps skipper in 1909. William had starred for Alloa in a thrilling derby win against Bogie’s Clackmannan in September of that year. Two days later he was crushed by falling rock in Brucefield Colliery. I had visited William's grave pr