While football continues to dine at the finest tables across the globe, the romanticism of the FA Cup prevails. Joseph Fox and Orlando Gili have captured the unrivalled tournament that places minnows alongside giants, in an essential book entitled Que Sera Sera.
The famous song's next line, "we're going to Wembley", is where this book culminates, however it's the build up and journey that make it truly unique. From the first round, the pair followed the victor of one game through to the final, round by round, documenting the whole path. Now placed in the time capsule of print, it's the raw detail where this book dances, and having received acclaim from renowned photographer Martin Parr, who said, “I cannot think of a better book on football in the UK”, you know it's going to be something special.
A foreword from Haydall Codeen captures the emotion and energy that this book has in droves as he writes: "There is still an end-of-pier warmth to the FA Cup, a miracle survivor from yesteryear, something to mark the passage of the seasons by even as all those straining, hopeless, upset-craving teams from the parks fall away with the onset of spring.
It’s hard to think of anything that starts and ends in such different places as the world’s oldest cup competition. The journey undertaken by Joseph Fox and Orlando Gili as they captured the images for this book began in a crowd of 58 other lonesome souls at the London Tigers’ Avenue Park Stadium, a field by the M4 motorway, the team had to leave just months later due to gratuitous fly-tipping. The road ended at Wembley Stadium, the 90,000 all-seater monolith that claims to be the cradle of world football.
The joy of the FA Cup, and the joy of this book, is in trying to weld these two parallel worlds together even as you awe at their profound sense of separation. This collection of images tells you that the secret to doing so resides in the eyes of the fans, the hope that lives there no matter the level of pomp, pay or pageantry – the only true constant, really, beyond that loyal collection of semi-circles and oblongs marked on grass, ancient cave paintings guiding home a spectacle that only feels more loved the more we fear it lost."
An unbelievable journey immortalised, the FA Cup returns this weekend with the much famed third round that will see Premier League teams entering the mix.
You can pick up a copy of Que Sera Sera here.
