Free PDF. Cup Fever, Eighties Style.

During the summer of 2016 I received a phone call from Caernarfon Town supporter, Alex Philp, who asked if I would be interested in putting together a pamphlet of sorts to describe the story of the team's famous run to the third round proper of the FA Cup in 1986/87. 

Alex had recently decided to set up a former players' association for those who had turned out for the Cofis and one of his upcoming projects was to hold a thirty year reunion for the club's legendary FA Cup side.

I had been one of those lucky Caernarfon Town supporters who witnessed John King's wonderful side from the terraces, when Ii would walk through the Oval turnstiles knowing that my team would win, more often than not, and no matter who the opposition was. Therefore, Alex's proposal was a no-brainer although I did have one condition: that I wanted to work on the pamphlet on my own, and with carte blanche to do what I wished with it. I had roughly seven months to put it together and wanted the freedom to work on it in my own time and with no need to agree on its contents with anyone else. Alex had enough on his plate in trying to pull the reunion together, and getting the merchandise etc ready, so the arrangement suited us both and I began on a course of action.

As excited as I was to have been given this opportunity, I soon found that I had a number of pretty serious challenges to deal with. I had little archive material, no photographs, no match reports and no links to the players! I needed access to all four and, luckily for me, everyone I contacted came up trumps.

Club historian Ian Garland, and long time supporter Mike Jones, provided me with plenty of archive material, including match reports and match day programmes from the run itself, whilst my old friend, and ace photographer, Richard Birch gave me permission to use his snaps from thirty years ago.

All this would help me enormously but I felt that, in order to add some real authenticity to the project I needed to get hold of members of that special team to get their recollections. This is where Alex came in as he provided me with phone numbers and email addresses for some of those legendary players and so, an excited forty seven year old was transformed back to the teenager who stood on those terraces all those years ago, as I got in touch with Russ Hughes, Huw Williams, Ken Jones, Ray Woods and captain Phil Wilson, all of whom provided me with great anecdotes and genuine insights of a special time in the club's history.

I had small pieces of information about all the matches during the run, including all four qualifying rounds and, rather than copying and pasting these, I decided to write up my own reports based on the original pieces, and supplemented by the players' memories whilst I also included Richard Birch's recollections of taking those iconic photographs.
My efforts eventually turned into a thirty two page booklet which was printed on high quality glossy paper, with colour front and back covers, that I based on the home match day programmes from the 86/87 season. Copies of the booklet are still available to buy at the club shop on match days for a very reasonable £3,00p but, for those who cannot make it there, or prefer to read on their tablets and mobile devices I thought it would be nice to end 2017 on a high and make this pdf version of the booklet available to everyone now. I hope you enjoy it!
All written content is copyright of Paul Evans. All photos are copyright of Richard Birch.              

Here's the link to the reunion booklet. Cup Fever, Eighties Style!
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1YRQd37BtduMAY2P79hLTY7hChr2Z3SOK