Dark Blue Blood – Scottish Rugby in the Black & White Era

Scottish rugby’s history is talked about, and fondly reminisced over, but almost never seen. This book changes all that. This is what the game looked like in the old days.
The book has hundreds of photos from the past 30, 40, 50 years and more, that have lain in dusty archives undisturbed for decades.
It is a journey through old grounds, old comrades, old foes and old contests, the domestic as well as international game.
This book is for those who remember the game as it was, and those who wonder what the game used to be like.
There has never been a Scottish rugby book like this.
Shamelessly nostalgic, anyone interested in the rugby of yesteryear will love it. For a certain type of person, this is the best gift you could possibly give them.

Scottish rugby has a glorious history, great players, great games, great memories.
The game has been photographed all the way along its journey, and it is those photos that author Steve Finan found in dusty newspaper and magazine archives, and various other collections — photos not seen for 40 or 50 years.
Squarely aimed at the sports nostalgia market, the book contains around 200 photos of team line-ups, action shots, spectators, Sevens tournaments, and the grounds where the game was played.
Readers will recognise the players and the games they strived so hard in, and very probably see themselves among the crowds.
Great care has been taken to show the game at all levels, from the world record crowd-setting Scotland-Wales match of 1975, to fun-in-the-sun Sevens tournaments on the summer circuit, and Orkney RFC anniversary celebrations. It’s all here.
The All Blacks tours are shown (the Haka looks just the same against a backdrop of Aberdeen multi-storey flats as it does in a World Cup Final).
The greats of the past are highlighted, as well as the weekend club rugger lads.
This is Scottish rugby.

The Author
A journalist of 40 years, Steve Finan is a sports historian and author of Lifted Over The Turnstiles: Scottish Football Grounds In The Black & White Era and It’s A Team Game: Scottish Football Club Line-Ups Of The Black & White Era. As well as local titles The Red Army: Celebrating Dons Supporters, Arabs Away: Celebrating Dundee United Supporters, and Jim McLean Dundee United Legend, and non-sport titles Pass It On: Household Tips From The 1950s and Little Stories From The Police Courts.
Selling Points
Foreword by Doddie Weir.
This is unashamedly a nostalgia book. The expected audience are men and women who have been interested in Scottish rugby for decades.
The book has high production values in an effort to be a desirable gift, the “just right” present for the people who are usually the most impossible to buy for.
There has never been a Scottish rugby book like it, and, unless a time machine is invented, there never can be again. You can’t take “new” old photos.

Detail
Hardback; 300 pages; 260mm x 220 mm (landscape).
ISBN: 978-1-84535-819-8
Full colour (subtle sepia on b&w photos). Retail Price £19.99
Publication Date: May 2020. Publisher: DC Thomson Media.

Price: £19.99

Postage costs: £3 for UK delivery only

Estimate delivery time: Within two to five days for UK delivery