Ron Ferguson

I’m telling you, some things are more important than winning. A moving, funny, and deeply human story of family, football, and finding your way home. When Sally returns to Cowdenbeath from her busy city life for her father’s funeral, she’s pulled back into the world of “The Blue Brazil” – the trials, triumphs, and unbreakable loyalty of a small-town football club with a big heart. What begins as a flying visit becomes an unforgettable journey through grief, community, and the beautiful game in all its glorious imperfection. Gary McNair’s brand-new stage adaptation of Ron Ferguson’s beloved book is a funny, poignant, and packed with the spirit of Scottish football. Black Diamonds and the Blue Brazil is more than a play about the game - it’s about belonging, loss, and the songs we carry with us. This edition was published to coincide with the production at The Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh in May 2026.

21 years after its publication, a new edition is being published with updated text and new chapters as well as a new Introduction, written by one of the book’s many fans and the biggest name in British football, Sir Alex Ferguson. But this is a book about much, much more than football It is loved not only by Sir Alex but also by Gordon Brown, Alistair Campbell, Ian Rankin and the Rev Kathy Galloway and it was a huge favourite of poet, George Mackay Brown. So why have the trials and tribulations of Cowdenbeath football club – one of the most unsuccessful football clubs in Britain - excited the imagination even of those who have no interest in football and who have never been to Cowdenbeath? Cowdenbeath’s story is set against the rise and decline of the local mining industry and the life after mining. It is very funny, deeply spiritual, moving and also a little bit political. But what makes it so interesting to so many groups is the uplifting story of a real community spirit throughout all of the ups and downs of a town and a football club that is at its social heart and core. It is also the most autobiographical book that Ron Ferguson has written, never taking himself very seriously. The book’s quirkiness appeals across the religious, local, national, and footballing worlds. Long out of print, this is the new and updated 21st-anniversary edition.

Enigmatic – mysterious – intriguing: George Mackay Brown was a notoriously private man. He rarely left his native Orkney, and yet became one of the 20th century’s finest poets and prose stylists. In his prolific writings, George Mackay Brown’s spirituality and his love of the wind-scoured island landscape fused to give us some of the most beautiful poetry and prose in the English language. His work is shot through with glimpses of the divine. Ron Ferguson, who was described by George Mackay Brown as 'a true craftsman in litereature' tracks with curiosity and passion his friend’s literary and spiritual journey, including his controversial move from Presbyterianism to Roman Catholicism. He explores the darker, more tormented, side of Orkney’s Bard and uncovers the intense relationship between alcohol, suffering and creativity. This is a riveting journey. Along the way, the author is forced to question some of his own assumputions. And the reader is swept along on a literary and spiritual voyage of discovery that compels to the very end. Weaving a brilliant, enriching narrative, the author draws extensively on the poet's writings, unpublished letters, conversations with the Bard's friends and many well-known writers. SHORTLISTED FOR THE SALTIRE AWARD FOR BEST RESEARCH BOOK OF THE YEAR

This book is intended for four intersecting groups of readers. If you are a philosopher, closet or sanctioned, then you cannot ponder the nature of being without due consideration for vision, and cannot contemplate the role of seeing in our lives without listening to the stories of those who are blind. The tales within this text are particularly contemporaneous because they are contextualized by the cyber-phenomena of online learning. This segues to the second group of readers, as the described empirical research was originally intended to bring greater depth and breadth of understanding to the field of educational technology, particularly as it intersects with disability studies. There is a paucity of published literature that has inquired into disabled online learners, and this research study responds to that call. Third, this book may be used as a textbook on approaches to interpretive empirical research. It is as close as one may come to a recipe, walking students through a specific example.Because it is situated in actual empirical research, the intention was that it avoid the trap of being prescriptive or formulaic. Finally, the text is intended for readers interested in the field of blindness. The text reviews some of the seminal and contemporary research on blindness, and then presents an elaborated example of what we can and should expect to emerge in the knowledge production industry, changing what it means to be blind.

This book is intended for four intersecting groups of readers. If you are a philosopher, closet or sanctioned, then you cannot ponder the nature of being without due consideration for vision, and cannot contemplate the role of seeing in our lives without listening to the stories of those who are blind. The tales within this text are particularly contemporaneous because they are contextualized by the cyber-phenomena of online learning. This segues to the second group of readers, as the described empirical research was originally intended to bring greater depth and breadth of understanding to the field of educational technology, particularly as it intersects with disability studies. There is a paucity of published literature that has inquired into disabled online learners, and this research study responds to that call. Third, this book may be used as a textbook on approaches to interpretive empirical research. It is as close as one may come to a recipe, walking students through a specific example.Because it is situated in actual empirical research, the intention was that it avoid the trap of being prescriptive or formulaic. Finally, the text is intended for readers interested in the field of blindness. The text reviews some of the seminal and contemporary research on blindness, and then presents an elaborated example of what we can and should expect to emerge in the knowledge production industry, changing what it means to be blind.

The history of the Iona Community, including St Colomba's founding of an influential Celtic Christian community on the Hebridean island of Iona in the sixth century, the work of George MacLeod whose inspiration placed Iona firmoly on the Christian map once again in the 20th century and the current broad span of the Community, touching the map of human experience - spirituality, politics, peace and justice - guided by the wild goose, Celtic symbol of the Holy Spirit.

A war hereo and successful young minister in Edinburgh during the 1920s, George MacLeod shocked his many admirers by taking a post in Govan and embarking on the rebuilding of the ancient abbey on the Isle of Iona. This is the story of the birth of the Iona Community.

Many lives were changed by George MacLeod's spine tingling sermons and many more by his personal example. The extra acts in this book, which can be used to inspire personal or group reflection, give a flavour of the passion and poetry of the Celtic mystic who led the rebuilding of the Iona Abbey, and whose theology was worked out not in the study but out in the street.