A Guidebook to an Historic Season Straight from Highbury's Gooner Grapevine

Arsenal All 4-1

Bernard Azulay was born in North London in 1961. When he was five, his father introduced him to 'the Home of Football', and his relationship with the Arsenal was sealed in the back of the car leaving White Hart Lane in 1971 when Ray Kennedy signed his programme: 'To Bernard, whom I travelled home with after the game'. He now writes a regular column for the Irish Examiner, Ireland's fastest-growing daily paper, and is a contributor to The Gooner fanzine and the Arsenal-World website. He lives a few pitch lengths away from the famous Marble Halls with his partner Róna and their pooch Treacle.

The 2003-04 football season was a landmark in the Gunners' already illustrious history. Consolation for the Arsenal's costly Cup exits could come in the form of an achievement the like of which might never again be repeated. as they remained undefeated in the Premiership right to the end of a triumphant red-and-white roller-coaster ride. 
 
Once again, Arsène Wenger's side have raised the bar to a point beyond anything that has ever been seen before in British football. Sport lovers everywhere have been regularly left absolutely agog in admiration of the sublime skills and athletic grace that have brought some much-needed beauty back into our not-so-beautiful game. 
 
Aresenal All 4-1 is a week-by-breathtaking-week account of the Gunners undefeated exploits. A blow-by-blow description of the season's legion of snakes and ladders; sending offs and resultant suspensions; mad refereeing decisions (both misjudged and misappropriated!); gobsmacking game-changing goals; and heart-stopping howlers. It is a tale of ten tantalising months of trains, planes and automobiles, over land and sea (and Leicester), from one of the privileged few Gooners who witnessed every game in this wonderful odyssey from the terraces. 
 
Relive this scintillating season of total football as revealed in the sort of charismatic reports that could have only come from a Gooner who cut his teeth on the tedious triumphs of the Arsenal's infamous flat back four.

Bernard Azulay

Overdrawn, Under The Weather, Overslept, Underpants, Over The Moon, Under The Table - A Terrace Take On The Season

These are heady times at Highbury. Gobsmacked Gooners have been 'giving it large' over their glorious Double victory after three long years of playing bridesmaid to their northern nemesis. 
 
Arsenal on the Double is an intimate account of the most exciting season since the inception of the Premier League, seen through the experienced journalistic eyes of a lifelong Arsenal fan - one of the legions of loyal, hail-or-shine fanatics who follow their club over land and sea (and Leicester!). 
 
Any lifelong addict of the beautiful game will be able to relate to this roller-coaster ride of tribulation and ultimate triumph. The author takes us from the shock of discovering the debilitating cost cost of season-ticket renewals on the day of last year's FA Cup final disaster to the usual evangelical early-season euphoria. He traces the Arsenal's almost annual November inconsistency, which was transformed by a New Year's resolution to win - a resolution resulting from their Christmas-season encounters with card-happy referees. 
 
Go with the Gunners on an emotionally exhausting, but joyful journey, as they romp all the way back to another FA Cup final in Cardiff. Delight in the dramatic denouement of the Arsenal's third Double when Old Trafford becomes a Gooner's Theatre of Dreams and their record-breaking season reaches its ultimate climax on the enemy's turf.

Bernard Azulay

Books by Bernard Azulay

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