If a fan club was ever mooted for this column, there is one outstanding candidate to run such a thing.
Dundonian Rob Boag, from Canada, has been amazingly complimentary to these articles over the years.
His latest contribution keeps up the plaudits taking it to an all-time high and reckoning that BwB is a ‘literary time capsule’.
“There is no Dundee Sports Hall of Fame,” he bemoans.
“There is no site or location that pays tribute to the city’s illustrious sports history, no testimonial to the athletes who wrote that history.
“Is it apathy of recognition toward sports amateur and professional from Dundee’s Town Hall . . . apathy toward a history that goes back over 100 years?
“I am sure most Dundonians are positive on the City’s pursuit of culture but culture without sport is surely counterfeit culture.
“Fortunately, there is Blether with Brown.
“BwB is a literary time capsule, a treasure trove of photographs and stories donated by Dundee generations that illustrate and tell the tales of Dundee’s sports and social history.
“Recent contributions such as Tom Black’s article on football players’ wages and Bill Brown hunting pigeons on a Saturday morning in the Dens Park stand, along with Ed Gorrie’s stories on that great Dundee FC team of the 1950s, are further jigsaw pieces that, put in place, build a more complete picture of our past.”
Rob continued: “Another gem is Frank Jordan’s article last year on football matches played at the grounds of the Blyth Street mill.
“This story is a microcosm of football games played among Dundee streets before folks emigrated to the housing schemes.
“Games were played on concrete, on patches of dirt that lay between tenements. Lads played keepie-up for hours with a tennis ball in a closie, and anyone who did a sliding tackle on the cinder surface of a Coup (Riverside) pitch will still bear the scars.
“Out of these industrial inner city sports grounds, Dundee produced world-class athletes.
“Honour them!
“By the way, the talent which graced these two Blyth Street teams could form a Premier club in today’s game.
“This is Dundee social and sport history.
“Where are the scriveners documenting this passage of time for future Dundee generations?
“Is this not part of Dundee’s culture?”
Changing sport to boxing, Rob went on: “The other evening, while watching Scottish actor David Tennant, my mind drifted toward the Dundee Tennants the boxing brothers Freddie and Norrie Tennant.
“Their names should be chiselled into the bedrock of Dundee sports history.
“Through my dad and uncle Joe (when Joe Boag crossed the frontier, then cleared customs and excise at the railway bridge and ‘entered’ Lochee, the name on his passport changed to Josie Boag, the Tipperary name for Joseph), I met both Freddie and Norrie Tennant sometime in the mid 1950s.
“Norman (Norrie) had 46 professional fights, and won the Scottish Flyweight Championship in 1948. He lost on points to Terry Allen in a British contender bout at Dens Park as 16,000 fans turned out to watch that fight.
“Freddie fought an incredible 200 professional fights.Now, try to get your head around 200 fights in a time when the UK produced the greatest flyweights in the world.
“Freddie was one of the few opponents of Benny Lynch to beat him, and Freddie won the Scottish Flyweight title in 1938.
“I have seen a photo in BwB of Norrie in his match with Terry Allen at Dens but haven’t seen one of Freddie.
“Could BwB find one?”
Unfortunately, we don’t have any photos of Freddie in action.
However, left and right are some of Freddie and Norrie, with the one on the far left showing Norrie training with a punchbag in the gym.
* Rob came on with yet another anecdote after reading about the reference to mince rolls, Floyd Patterson and Beechwood (BwB, Jan 13).
“After reading this, I went into downtown Dundas (the town where we live in Canada), stopped in at the butcher’s shop and picked up some mince (called ground beef over here).
“Then it was next door to the greengrocer for a couple of onions, fresh herbs and spices.
“Next stop was the Dundas bakery for a bag of rolls, still warm from the oven that morning.
“By mid-afternoon, I had a pot of mince simmering on the stove I am positive would have met the approval of Beechie residents of that era.
“That evening, Hilda and I dined on gourmet Beechie mince rolls, which were uplifted to another culinary level when paired with a few glasses of Cab Shiraz.”
Have you got a story to share with John? Email: jbrown@dcthomson.co.uk
This article originally appeared on the Evening Telegraph website. For more information, read about our new combined website.