Black Diamonds And The Blue Brazil

The Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh are currently working on an adaption of Ron Ferguson’s beautiful memoir of supporting Cowdenbeath, Black Diamonds and The Blue Brazil. Ron of course used the pain and joy of supporting a lower league Scottish football team as a means to explore faith, de-industrialisation, identity, community and hope. The book deservedly became a cult classic and has reached beyond Scottish football even internationally.

Glasgow writer Gary McNair has adapted the book, with a story of a successful woman who long ago left home, returning to Cowdenbeath for her dad’s funeral. She hopes this last trip home will be ‘In, out, no time wasted.’ At the wake, her dad’s pal tells her his last request was that she scatter his ashes on the sacred turf of Central Park after a win. Since the team have just been promoted to the 1st division for the first time in 21 years this should be a breeze. Surely the team are on a high? But in fact, this is the 1992 season where Cowdenbeath became the first team in Scottish league history to go an entire season without a home win.

Due to Covid, The Lyceum has been shut for over a year. During this time they have done online video work, and made a series of online audio plays ‘The Sound Stage.’ The Lyceum has commissioned 8 new plays and are playing them to a ticketed audience on a special online platform with discussion with authors, cast and crew afterwards. Black Diamonds and The Blue Brazil will premiere on this audio platform. Further information can be found on their website here.

The Lyceum are keen to include Cowdenbeath FC and its fans in this project, given the club is at the heart of the story. As a starter for 10 the Lyceum want to bring the atmosphere alive by recording some Cowden fans singing a couple of chants in the Central Park stand which Gary McNair has written for the play. The Lyceum are looking to record these in the next couple of weeks. Thus we are now putting out a call to our fans to volunteer to come along to Central Park to be involved in this recording. Please help with this if you can as Ron’s tale is told anew. Let’s further demonstrate ‘Cowden’s Got Talent!’ We are looking for 10/15 volunteers so please contact us via an e-mail to office@cowdenbeathfc.com or by Facebook message. We are sure it will be an enjoyable experience.