Product Description

Charles Buchan's Football Monthly was Britain's first ever football 'glossy'. Packed with hand tinted photographs and celebrity articles, its arrival on the bookstands in September 1951 brought colour and glamour to the nation's football hungry public after years of wartime deprivation and austerity. At its peak in the late 1960s the magazine was sellilng 254,000 copies a week.

The Best of Charles Buchan's Football Monthly was one of last year's best selling Christmas annuals - this year Charles Buchan's Arsenal Gift Book promises similar treats.

After an introduction by Simon Inglis, editor of the Played in Britain series, Arsenal historian Jon Spurling sets the scene: the year is 1951, Highbury Stadium, its wartime bomb damage now patched up, faces a difficult decade. The club's 1930s glamour is rapidly fading. Arsenal stars tell Charles Buchan about life at post war Arsenal. Buchan himself was an Arsenal star in the 1920s and tells some grand tales too.

As the years go by the hairstyles change, the shirts and boots are more streamlined, the stars come and go - Joe Mercer, Wally Barnes, Dennis Crompton, Jack Kelsey, Tommy Lawton, Tommy Docherty, George Graham, Frank McLintock, Bob Wilson, John Radford, George Armstrong... League Champions in 1953, but not again until 1971, FA Cup winners in 1950, but not again until 1971. Throughout thick and thin, Charles Buchan's Football Monthly was there to report on this great football institution with its glorious traditions, and some brilliant kits...

Simon Inglis, editor of the Played in Britain series, has many titles to his name. Engineering Archie (English Heritage) was runner up for the William Hill Sportsbook of the Year Award in 2005. His earlier book, The Football Grounds of Great Britain (Harper Collins) was selected by the Guardian's Frank Keating as the best sports books of the 20th century.

Jon Spurling has written four challenging and popularly acclaimed histories of Arsenal, most recently Highbury, the story of Arsenal in N5 (Orion).

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #210819 in Books
• Published on: 2007-10-22
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 144 pages

Customer Reviews

A trip back to a different age
This was a fantastic read, bringing to life many of the great players from Arsenal's not too distant past. The articles describe the players lives and aspirations in a way that todays players would find hard to understand. Off the field lives were nicely sanitised and some even still had part-time jobs. But for any Arsenal supporter who remembers the teams of the 50s, 60s and 70s, it is compulsive reading and hard to resist chapter titles such as "the truth behind my move to the greatest club in the world" ( Bill Dodgin) or "they made me a goalkeeper because I was the smallest" (Jack Kelsey) plus the posed photos, brylcreemed hair and everchanging shorts and shirts.

Memories, memories..!
Having only really started my love affair with The Gunners in the early 70's, my knowledge of 50's and 60's Highbury folklore was only patchy at best. The Charlie Buchan Arsenal Gift Book is the perfect cure for my ailment, packed to the brim as it is with great pictures of the star Arsenal players of the day, celebrity articles and some great stuff about the post war years of the late and much-missed Highbury.

I'm not bad on my McLintocks, Grahams, Armstrongs and Radfords but now I can bore them down at the North Bank pub with my knowledge of Lawton, Mercer, Kelsey!

A must for all who have entered into that Faustian pact of supporting Arsenal and definitely one to keep under the pillow at night!