Angus veteran dies days before 100th birthday

Andy Coogan, an Angus veteran and athlete who inspired his great-nephew Sir Chris Hoy to Olympic greatness, has died just days before he was due to celebrate his 100th birthday.

An ace runner who survived unimaginable torment during the Second World War to raise a family back home, Mr Coogan had built a reputation as one of Scotland’s brightest athletes and was taking on the best in the world over a mile by 1940.

He had joined the Maryhill Harriers in his native Glasgow but his dreams of competing in the 1948 Olympics in London were shattered with the outbreak of war.

After being posted to India with the Royal Artillery, he fought in the Malayan campaign and was taken prisoner by the Japanese in Singapore in 1941, at the age of 24.

Put to work in the Kinkasaki copper mines and on the railways in Formosa, now Taiwan, he never gave up.

He survived for almost four years in captivity.

At Heito, he was forced to dig his own grave on two occasions, and was being held only 20 miles from Nagasaki when the second atomic bomb was dropped in 1945.

He told these stories to Chris Hoy as an eight-year-old boy in Edinburgh, which the cyclist said inspired his own life.

When Mr Coogan returned to live in Angus after the war, he weighed around six and a half stone and was unable to take part in high-level competition.

He married Myra, his wife of 65 years, and had three children: Andy, Christine and Jean.

Mr Coogan continued to run, and in his seventies, he won a silver medal at the British Veterans’ Athletic Championship.

He worked as a painter and decorator and continued to train children at his local Tayside Amateur Athletic Club in Carnoustie until 2008.

He captured his experiences in a book, entitled Tomorrow You Die.

The world’s attention was on Mr Coogan when he carried the Olympic torch in 2012, and the Queen’s Baton ahead of the Commonwealth Games two years later.

Sir Chris previously said: “Andy could easily have achieved what I have, but it was taken away from him.

“Most people would be obsessed with the ‘what ifs’.

“But he has never shown any resentment. Instead, he devoted his life to coaching others.”

Posting on social media yesterday, Sir Chris said: “He was an amazing man and we were so lucky to have him in our lives.”

Mr Coogan was due to mark his 100th birthday on April 1.

Picture: Paul Reid. “An amazing man”: Mr Coogan at home in Carnoustie with some of his medals.