A NEW book is seeking to tell the tale of one of Troon’s best-known families – sporting heavyweights the Brown family.

Mud, Blood and Studs recounts the history of the South Ayrshire sports stars from their lives growing up in South Ayrshire in the early 20th century up until the modern day.

The Browns were famous for their football and rugby prowess with several of them having played the sports at international level.

Gordon Brown (1947-2001) and his brother Peter (1941), former Marr College pupils, were famous Rugby Union players, with Gordon representing the British Lions and Scotland on numerous occasions and Peter starring for Scotland too, captaining the national team 10n times.

They were the offspring of John Bell Brown (1915-2005) of Clyde FC Scottish Cup fame. John, a goalkeeper with the club, conceded just one goal en route to the final in 1939.

John’s brother, Jim Brown (1908-1994) was also a football player, scoring a goal for the US football team to earn them third place at the 1930 World Cup. His career also saw him play for Manchester United and Tottenham.

Jim’s grandson, James Brown, 47, Vice President of the Society of American Soccer History is the author of the book, a six-year project prompted into existence after a ‘Who are you?’ homework assignment given to his son.

James told the Advertiser: “It was literally a genealogy idea, you know, a family tree. And then I started to talk with all the cousins and get their little stories. That was just magical.

“One thing that has been absolutely precious is that my father wrote his memoirs, up until a certain point, and his memory, the detailed memories of growing up in Troon in the 1940s was absolutely staggering. It’s like, you literally could see him walking out of his his house, and going, you know, going barefoot, to the local bakery, stealing bread or whatever he could, you know, kind of getting really low down on the ground and grab something. His details are absolutely precious. So there’s a great look at Troon in the 1920s.

“I’m sure that the elders within the community will have fond memories of the names of people and the stores that were there.”

The book is available to pre-order now from Amazon.