Jamie Kemble - Bluebird Heaven: Cardiff Citys Return to the Promised Land

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2018

Pitch Publishing

A2 Yeoman Gate

Yeoman Way

Durrington

BN13 3QZ

www.pitchpublishing.co.uk

Jamie Kemble, 2018

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A CIP catalogue record is available for this book from the British Library

Print ISBN 978-1-78531-457-5

eBook ISBN 978-1-78531-476-6

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FIRST OF all, I have to thank Paul and Jane Camillin at Pitch Publishing for allowing me to peruse this project. Theyve given me a tremendous opportunity. And theyve done that by taking a chance on me with this being my first book. I also have to say a big thank you to Duncan Olner who produced a brilliant front cover, Derek Hammond and everyone else at Pitch Publishing who has played a part in this book making it to the shelves.

Id like to say a big thank you to Dominic Booth, who was kind enough to write the foreword. He also helped by providing his insight, which you will come across later in the book. Dom is brilliant at what he does, and Ive had the pleasure of working alongside him for what has become a very special season. We dont work for the same publication, but were part of the small soon to become much bigger number of people who cover Cardiff City week-in, week-out.

Ian Mitchelmore is another who has shared in the drama of the last 12 months and Id also like to say thank you to Ian. He is another very talented writer who has been kind enough to lend a hand to this book.

So many people have been kind enough to lend their time to help this project by answering questions and providing insight. Id like to say thank you to Keith Morgan, Laurence Mora, Vince Alm, Ben Price, Jordan Jones, Joshua Slack, Kevin Ellis, Callum Ellis, Thomas Griffiths and Jon Candy. Id also like to thank Leanne Bennett and all the anonymous supporters who helped with the Trouble at the bridge chapter.

A number of former players were also kind enough to offer their time and my thanks go to Andy Campbell, Gavin Rae and Steven Thompson.

I also have to extend my thanks to the media team at Cardiff City Football Club and particularly to Mark Denham, Jamie DeCruz and Sam Roberts. Theyve been so accommodating over the last 18 months or so, and theyve made it a pleasure to cover the club. It was also great to see these people, and indeed everyone at the club, celebrating promotion in May. There have been some very testing times over the years, as you will discover over the course of this book. And the people who continued their work at the football club through such times deserve to be working in the Premier League again.

I would like to thank my family for their continued support, to my partner for putting up with the endless hours on the laptop, not only through a non-stop season, but through the process of writing this book on the back of it. To my mother, Theresa, a special thanks also, for taking the time to proof read my work.

With all the thanks aside, Id like to express how much of a privilege it has been to cover Cardiff City, especially during the most recent promotion season. The manager, Neil Warnock, has been so brilliant to deal with, so open and honest in press conferences and at games. Hes given the football club a gift of a lifetime in promotion. He has also reinstalled core values that had gone missing over the course of a previous turbulent decade.

His players, including the likes of Sol Bamba, Sean Morrison, Joe Ralls, Joe Bennett, Lee Peltier and so many more have been a pleasure to talk to during a memorable season and it was a delight to see them achieve such a happy ending to a long, hard campaign.

Its a happy ending that enabled me to write this book, adding a fitting end to a crazy decade at the football club. Its been a roller coaster; an endless stream of ups and downs, and I hope you enjoy reliving it all in this book.

CARDIFF CITY is an infectious club with an endearing set of fans who have always demanded a hard-working team and a charismatic manager, which of course they now have. They are a hardy bunch who in the summer of 2018 basked in the most unlikely glory.

But it hasnt always been this way. The last ten years have been a roller-coaster ride for the club and its supporters. From the dark depths of a divisive colour change and the disquiet towards controversial owner Vincent Tan to the heady days under Neil Warnock. Throw in Dave Jones, Malky Mackay, cup finals, play-off heartbreak. Theyve seen it all down here.

I arrived in the city of Cardiff as a university student in September 2011 with the Mackay era just getting revved up. I started covering the Bluebirds as a journalist for Media Wales in September 2016 as the Warnock era was about to set sail. In between Id always had a passing interest in the club (as a wannabe sports journalist) but it was covering the 2017/18 season that I was truly captivated by Cardiff City and of course by Warnock, the architect of this sensational return to the Premier League.

I met the author of this book, Jamie Kemble, at weekly press conferences and matches. And we rode the wave together in many ways, lapping up the media-friendly soundbites that Warnock would offer at the Vale Hotel on a Friday morning and then waiting patiently in the bowels of Cardiff City Stadium with a cup of tea and a pie as the 3pm Saturday kick-off approached. What unfolded before our eyes that season was not just the culmination of Warnocks incredible work in the dressing room, nor the masterful coaching of Kevin Blackwell and Ronnie Jepson on the training ground. It was not just the personality of Sol Bamba, the resilience of Sean Morrison, the pace of Nathaniel Mendez-Laing, the trickery of Junior Hoilett.

It was an entire fanbase reawakening. A promotion clad in their true blue colours secured by a figure, in Warnock, so universally loved and admired that it felt like those awful intervening years had never happened. It marked the end of an astonishing decade at Cardiff City, which this book superbly chronicles.

Jamie combines the fine eye for detail of a journalist who has been at the heart of the matter, with the passion and knowledge of a lifelong Cardiff supporter. The result is this compelling read, which is a must for any 21st-century Bluebird.

Dominic Booth, WalesOnline digital sports writer

WE BEGIN our journey a decade ago, as the light finally begins to shine on the turbulent yet seldom dull life of Cardiff City following years of mediocrity and disappointment in the lower leagues. Its the Bluebirds fifth season in the Championship following a stunning hometown play-off final win at the Millennium Stadium in 2003. Andy Campbells extra-time winner may have felt like a giant springboard for the club at the time, but four difficult mid-table-at-best seasons have already dampened any hopes of putting together a surge through the English football pyramid.