Very few football clubs in the modern age can boast the rich and varied history of Cardiff City. Originally established in 1899 as an extension of Riverside Cricket Club in the Welsh capital, it remains the only non-English club ever to win the FA Cup, and once lost out on the league title to Huddersfield by the lowest ever margin. In addition, there have been unforgettable cup runs, emotion-charged excursions into the European footballing elite, and heaps of controversy, both on and off the pitch. The history of the club is punctuated with moments of glittering success achieved against all the odds, alongside immense tragedy and heartache.
As recently as 1999 they were playing in the lowest tier of league football and struggling to survive, but a decade later the club was taken over and re branded by a consortium of Malaysian businessmen, much to the chagrin of many long-term supporters. As divisive as it was, this development soon paved the way to success. After narrowly missing out on promotion for three consecutive years, the 2013/14 season sees Cardiff City Football Club finally competing in the Premier League, the first time in over half a century that the club has played top flight football.
This book is the inspirational story of the birth, death and subsequent rebirth of arguably the biggest football club in Wales, Cardiff City.
‘From The Ashes’ is an easily readable and enjoyable account of City’s more than one hundred year history which charts the rise, fall and rebirth of the side from its humble beginnings in 1899. It doubles as a superb reference work with full accounts of fixtures, results and team personnel for every season from the earliest days to the present.
– Ceri Shaw (Americymru)
Saunders goes through each one of Cardiff City’s league seasons individually. While it contains nothing revelatory, it is a memory-jogger (it is to Saunders’ credit that the hooligan problem the club used to have is not ignored) and a reminder of sports up-and-down ride for supporters.
– Gareth Rogers (Wales online)
Available NOW in all good (Welsh) bookshops, and from Amazon:
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October 27th, 2017 at 6:49 pm
[…] Flarefont, who promptly went bankrupt. During this time, I also started working on a book about Cardiff City FC, which eventually came out in 2014, again on Gwasg Carreg Gwalch, after another publisher strung me along for about three years until […]
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