Book Review: 'Arsenal: The Kings of Cardiff'
Last updated : 31 August 2005 By Brian Dawes
Even of the two we lost one was in the Final itself and actually lost against the run of play. Every year it seems the Cup is determined by the Club to be a minor priority but every season the team seem to be seriously up for it once more. Given that in the early years at the Club the media derided Wenger for not taking Cup football seriously because he fielded junior squad players against lower division sides he seems to have been seriously successful with the famous old trophy. This title then is a record of our successes during what will surely, in years to come, become known as ‘the Cardiff years'. And there has been no team who have even remotely approached the success that Arsenal have enjoyed in F A Cup football during those ‘Cardiff years', or for that matter at any other time in the history of the famous old pot.
Amongst the credits listed in this title are the executive editor, the project editor, the design team, production, the wordsmith (who was seriously understretched). And finally almost in passing you can discover that Stuart MacFarlane and maybe David Price are probably responsible for the bulk of the 150 plus colour photographs that are the very essence of the book. Given that this is a photographic record one might have expected a bit of credit where credit is due. All but a couple of the photographs are, as you would expect taken pitch side, and cover the action during the past five seasons of F A Cup matches, concentrating quite naturally on the finals themselves. The photographs are all appropriate, relevent to the title, well taken shots, neatly cropped and adequately described. They each appear with the appropriate match statistics for the photographs where relevent and cover every single game of the seasons covered.
The photographs are the essence of the book and other than a foreward by the great man himself, namely Arsene Wenger, there are just three pages of related Cup statistics including a full list of every player involved during these seasons. Like many football books these days this one is designed to cash in on the success of the Club and offers nothing new in the way of enlightenment, insights or new information. That said it has been neatly put together and will certainly act as decent souvenir of our Cup Final outings.
At £9.99 for a hardback book this title offers vastly better value than the Cup Final programmes. For the most recent Final programme I was ripped off to the tune of £8.50 by the money grubbing Football Association. How extortionate was that for a programme that included pages of adverts and little else of note, unlike this tidy little volume which merely advertises one of the all time successful cup sides.
You'll be able to order it from any decent bookstore if you quote the following ISBN number: 0 600 61469 7 or alternatively checkout your favourite online bookstore. Or if you travel to home games all the places you'd expect to sell it in and around Highbury will probably be doing so.
Arsenal: The Kings of Cardiff
A Pictorial History of F A Cup glory at Cardiff's Millenium Stadium.
Priced £9.99 Published by Hamlyn July 2005
