The Blizzard Live At The National Football Museum (1st Half)
The first half of the Blizzard's live Q&A event held at the National Football Museum as part of the Manchester Football Writing Festival on Thursday 1st September. Featuring a panel of Jonathan Wilson, Jack Pitt-Brooke and Philippe Auclair, hosted by Rory Smith. The panel took questions from the audience and Twitter on a range of subjects across two halves of chat including thoughts on the tran...
48m Sep 06, 2016
48m
The Grim Result Of Modern Economics
"Every year, it feels, [the European Super League] comes closer. If access to it starts to be determined on such criteria as “historical merit”, it becomes a de facto franchise system and the beautiful sense of organic growth and one enormous interconnected pyramid that has sustained European football for so long will be lost." In a short Episode 51 we bring you the Editor's Note from the upcom...
5m Aug 31, 2016
5m
The Conversion Of St Pauli
"At St Pauli, they refrain from playing music or advertisements during this quarter of an hour so that the fans can sing their songs undisturbed. Songs such as “No one wins at the Millerntor,” meaning that even if the visiting team should happen to score more goals than the home side, FC St Pauli will never be defeated, can never be destroyed." To mark our fiftieth episode, we offered up the ch...
46m Aug 25, 2016
46m
In Memoriam
"The stairwell where they were crushed looks horrifi cally tiny. The gates that had eventually sheered away from their concrete pillars still lay discarded on the floor 12 months on. It looked as if it had happened yesterday. I take some pictures but I’m chased out of the stadium by a security guard shouting that I am an Israeli spy." In Episode Forty Nine we look back at "In Memoriam" by James...
26m Aug 18, 2016
26m
La Renaissance (with Philippe Auclair)
"True to type, France’s 1978 World Cup campaign was a shambles. The tone was set before the actual tournament by a tragicomic episode which must rank among the most bizarre in the history of the competition. On the morning of May 23, driving with his wife to Bordeaux, 24 hours before his team was scheduled to leave France on a Concorde flight, Michel Hidalgo was the victim of a kidnapping attem...
25m Aug 11, 2016
25m
The Man Who Ate His Hat
"[The BBC's] first adventure into live football came on 16 September 1937 when the London service from Alexandra Palace, transmitting to nearly 100 viewers in the Muswell Hill area, ran the following packed schedule: 3pm Fancy That!; 3.30pm British Movietone News; 3.40pm Football at the Arsenal; 3.55pm Cartoon; 4pm Close. Obviously what everyone really wants to know is exactly what the hell sor...
12m Aug 03, 2016
12m
Why The Away Goals Rule Must Be Abolished
“Europe seemed much bigger in the early 1970s. Iberia was governed by fascist dictators. There were two Germanys, West and East. With no rolling news, Blackberries nor Twitter, a plausible sit-com episode could be written based on the Likely Lads avoiding knowledge of the result of an England match for half a day. Europe’s airlines were almost exclusively national carriers. Countries had unique...
17m Jul 14, 2016
17m
The Birth Of The Fan
“We were sorry to hear the offensive shouts of one ‘Mackintoshed stranger’, which, however, were almost entirely drowned out by the universal supporters of the Druryites.” In Episode Forty Five we revisit Paul Brown’s ‘The Birth of the Fan’ from Issue Thirteen, which looks back at historical sources to review the birth of football fandom itself. While our modern proclivities have been passed do...
28m Jul 07, 2016
28m
The Kennedy Conundrum
“Well, I can say hand on heart that I went for the ball — it’s just that I caught him with my elbow. And what made it worse is that his actual tooth stuck in my elbow. I wouldn’t mind but it was a big one, like a fuckin’ horse’s tooth. I suppose that if that happened in the Premier League now, they’d have a fuckin’ field day over it — the fuckin’ cameras would be right on top of it.” In Episode...
13m Jun 29, 2016
13m
The Multi Kulti Question
"And so, when all’s said and done, what does it matter? That there’s a yawning, unbridgeable chasm between the internationalism and diversity of cities like Geneva and Basel and the conservative politics of the Swiss rural heartlands? Between the hero-worship of Muslim footballers and a national ban on minarets? Between footballing icons like Xhaka, Shaqiri and Behrami and the fledgling Kosovo ...
22m Jun 23, 2016
22m
The First Twitter Tournament
"If Euro 2012 seemed unusually vibrant it was in part because of those echoes, the resonance of a million instant verbal salutes, a million demands for a retweet for this fascinating piece on the Czech Republic’s mildly innovative use of the attacking long throw-in." In Episode Forty Two we look back to 'The First Twitter Tournament' by Barney Ronay from Issue Six, which explores the changes in...
18m Jun 16, 2016
18m
The Best Summer Of My Life
"Perhaps the death of optimism is just what happens when you reach middle age, that you recognise how cruel and capricious the world can be, how the brightest dreams are sullied and perverted, and so cynicism becomes the natural mode. But in the summer of 1996, it felt like everything was moving in the right direction. Perhaps every generation goes through this, but looking back, two decades on...
15m Jun 09, 2016
15m
The Silenced Crowd
“There was no fooling the 18,000 spectators at Old Trafford. “Play up, you rotters!” they screamed. The fix was on. They knew it, as Manchester United went through the motions against Liverpool on 2 April 1915, winning 2-0 in a listless performance.” In Episode Forty we revisit ‘The Silenced Crowd’ by Richard Fitzpatrick from Issue Ten, which looks at the greatest scandal in British football in...
20m Jun 01, 2016
20m
The Blizzard Live in Edinburgh - Part 2
The second half of the Blizzard's live Q&A event held at the WS Society in Edinburgh on 19th May. Featuring a panel of Jonathan Wilson, Philippe Auclair, Alan Pattullo and Kevin McCarra, hosted by Daniel Gray. The panel took questions from the audience and Twitter on a range of subjects including unintelligent footballers, the upcoming European Championships, safestanding and other Scottish foo...
48m May 25, 2016
48m
The Blizzard Live in Edinburgh - Part 1
The first half of the Blizzard's live Q&A event held at the WS Society in Edinburgh on 19th May. Featuring a panel of Jonathan Wilson, Philippe Auclair, Alan Pattullo and Kevin McCarra, hosted by Daniel Gray. The panel took questions from the audience and Twitter on a range of subjects including unintelligent footballers, the upcoming European Championships, safestanding and other Scottish foot...
37m May 25, 2016
37m
A Sentimental Journey (with Jonathan Wilson)
“Perhaps, in this age of quasi-franchises and superclubs, when the structure of the competitions and the nature of globalisation makes the rich richer so they exist at an impossible remove to the rest, this is all that remains of the traditional mode of support: football not as an expression of provincial industrial pride, but as a reminder of it.” In Episode Thirty Eight we look back to ‘A Sen...
40m May 12, 2016
40m
City And The City
"The image of reinvention, conjuring up some kind of Google-land, can also, while understandably wanting to attract businesses, veer into overstating the case. If this had happened so successfully, this “remarkable economic transformation”; including the outlay of public money to create “sport city”, then hitting the jackpot with Abu Dhabi, why are the areas right around the stadium still mired...
27m May 04, 2016
27m
One Hit Wonders
“The nickname denoted a certain time in technology. Perhaps today he would have been ‘the Twitter scorer’ or ‘the Instagram attacker’. In the days before social media, Roy Essandoh was ‘the Teletext striker’, the man who went down in football folklore for being signed because of an article that appeared in blockish type on television screens and who scored an injury-time winner for the lower-le...
25m Apr 27, 2016
25m
The Search For Space
“Just as a newly-formed political party would be best off finding the point on the ideological spectrum where it can find the biggest ‘space’ (assuming this party has absolutely no ideological principles and is solely concerned with the pursuit of power), an intelligent playmaker given a free role will venture to the position on the pitch where he can find the most space.” In Episode Thirty Fiv...
14m Apr 20, 2016
14m
Echoes In Eternity
"When Ferguson moved into management in 1974, part-time at East Stirlingshire for £40 a week, the game was much less lucrative, broadcasters usually only supplied football punditry for special events (FA Cup finals, internationals, World Cups and so forth) and the principal career options for retiring footballers were: opening a sports shop, running a pub and becoming a manager" In Episode Thir...
36m Apr 13, 2016
36m
The Whisky Option
"By the ashtray lay a single sheet of paper and an unopened bottle of Scotch. Joao Rocha turning to his interlocutor without as much as a smile, said 'I'm afraid it's one or the other, Malcolm'. His time leading Portugal's famous green and white hoops, brief and glamourously successful, was over in one simple, dramatic Dartford Gunslinger moment." In episode Thirty Three we look back to 'The Wh...
18m Apr 06, 2016
18m
In Appreciation Of Franco Baresi
"There are pictures of the weeping comeback captain and Divine Ponytail consoling each other while Brazilian players dance in the background. No one did more on the pitch to drag Italy to the final than Baggio. No one did more off the pitch than Baresi." In Episode Thirty Two we look at 'In Appreciation of Franco Baresi' by Sheridan Bird, first published in Issue Eight in 2013. The article touc...
19m Mar 30, 2016
19m
The Real Problem
"There's something spectacularly silly about fans policing other fans for their adherence to the laws of fandom, as if not having one favourite club or preferring to watch from a seated position, is a VERY SERIOUS INFRACTION that should be SWIFTLY AND MERCILESSLY DEALT WITH. Because, you know, the economic recovery can't gather steam if Kyle in Ohio thinks it's fun to watch Chelsea on televisio...
9m Mar 23, 2016
9m
Fading Embers
“What is noticeable, immediately, is how little everyone is paying attention. They talk among themselves, rarely about the football, or they look at their phones. Midway through the first half, on the big screen behind the goal at the south end, there is an advertisement, broadcast over the PA system, for a lease-to-own furniture retailer. It is hard to decide what is more troubling: the advert...
38m Mar 16, 2016
38m
The Blizzard live in Dublin - Part 2
The second half of the Blizzard's live Q&A event held at Dublin's Sugar Club on 3rd March 2016. Featuring a panel of Jonathan Wilson, Philippe Auclair and James Horncastle, hosted by Second Captains' Eoin McDevitt, the discussion centred around Euro 2016 and Qatar 2022, whether matches can change the course of human history, some chat about Klopp and Liverpool, Mourinho, timewasting, the panel'...
1hr 7m Mar 09, 2016
1hr 7m
The Blizzard live in Dublin - Part 1
The first half of the Blizzard's live Q&A event held at Dublin's Sugar Club on 3rd March 2016. Featuring a panel of Jonathan Wilson, Philippe Auclair and James Horncastle, hosted by Second Captains' Eoin McDevitt, the discussion centred around this year's Premier League title race and Leicester's extraordinary performance, what's going on at Arsenal and who will replace Arsene Wenger, whether A...
52m Mar 09, 2016
52m
Ultra Violence
"A heavy cloud of tear gas hung over a Tahrir Square in revolt. Buckling under the pressure of thousands of protestors, the epicentre of the Egyptian revolution was unleashing a roar of resistance into the Cairo night. Against this backdrop of chaos and the sonic onslaught of revolution, one of my companions and I conducted a halting conversation about local football." In Episode Twenty Eight, ...
21m Mar 02, 2016
21m
Booze Boys
"Italia 90 was indeed the greatest excuse ever to go drinking in the history of Ireland... There is hardly a man alive in Ireland who does not have some blissful memory of being terribly, terribly drunk during Italia 90." It would be tempting to add, that was just the squad. In Episode Twenty Seven of the Blizzard Podcast we look back to Dion Fanning's 'Booze Boys' from Issue Eleven, which look...
20m Feb 24, 2016
20m
The Forgotten Full-Back
"Anderson chased back, but Nicol dropped a shoulder as he entered the box from the side. Anderson skittered away on the seat of his pants, foot down as he drove the engine of the Puskas-Wright Fire Service. Nicol, now in space, 12 yards out, floated an exquisitely placed effort over Kelly. It was one of the great goals". In Episode Twenty Five we look back to Scott Murray's 'The Forgotten Full-...
16m Feb 17, 2016
16m
The Van Basten Of Hartlepool
"When van Basten was visiting galeries, eating steamed vegetables and discussing the boundaries of freedom, Boydy was downing pints and going to grab-a-granny nights in clubs with two-for-one offers on blue Bacardi Breezers and fights in the car-park." In Episode Twenty Five we feature Harry Pearson's tale of Hartlepool United great Adam Boyd, 'The Van Basten of Hartlepool' from Issue Fifteen. ...
10m Feb 11, 2016
10m
South Of The River
"South London, to fans who came to the game with the advent of the Premier League, probably seems rather similar to, say, East Anglia - not a hotbed, but with one or two clubs who occasionally spend a season or two among the elite before sinking back to their natural level." It was not always thus. In Episode Twenty Four we revisit Nick Szczepanik's 'South of the River' from Issue Four, publish...
17m Feb 03, 2016
17m
Closure
"Grant realised that nightmares had tortured his father every night... It had been going on for years. After hearing his father scream that night, Avram vowed that he would find out everything that had happened to his family - and find the lost graves of those relatives who were buried in far-off lands." In Episode Twenty Three we revisit Igor Rabiner's 'Closure' from Issue Eleven, the story of...
25m Jan 27, 2016
25m
Tour Of Duty
"Two days later the Australians were back at the Cong Hoa Stadium to face the hosts South Vietnam. The atmosphere was tense, the pitch surrounded by barbed wire, army snipers and soldiers armed with fixed bayonets." In Episode Twenty Two we look back to Davidde Corran's 'Tour of Duty' which details the unlikeliest of football tours as the Australian national team were parachuted into Saigon at ...
19m Jan 20, 2016
19m
Literally On Fire
“As a result of not smoking I’m now fitter and have more money. And that works just fine, until you see a picture of Berbatov or Özil or Socrates puffing away on a cigarette and looking like the coolest bastard in the world. Berbatov is not only cooler than me, but is also fitter and has more money. So what was the point of giving up?” In Episode Twenty One we feature ‘Literally on Fire’ by Jon...
20m Jan 13, 2016
20m
The Velvet Revolution
"Little did people know that Cruyff's column would have a profound impact and lead to the so-called 'Velvet Revolution', which would soon become bloody. That it would lead to ugly court cases and yet another showdown between Cruyff and Van Gaal, forcing fans to pick either their mother or their father in a bitter divorce case". In episode Twenty we look back to Elko Born's 'The Velvet Revolutio...
22m Jan 06, 2016
22m
An African Parable
"They have been drawn in a difficult group, but hey, everyone has been drawn in a difficult group. With this foreign coach they will go far. He understands them. He is up-to-date with his practice and methodology. His parents know Africa. They were traders. Or missionaries. Or both." In episode Nineteen we look back to Luke Alfred's 'An African Parable' from Issue Zero, which contains no names ...
10m Dec 30, 2015
10m
Revie - Nixon
"Both were scarred by defeat and disappointment, both were obsessed by the fear of failure; both distrusted the press and surrounded themselves with a small group of loyalists. They remained difficult men to love." In episode Eighteen we look back to Dominic Sandbrook's 'Revie-Nixon' from Issue One, in which he examines the parallels between the US politician and the England and Leeds United ma...
14m Dec 23, 2015
14m
Notes On Street Football
"To pass is to relinquish control, to give up the certainty of the ball at your feet for the uncertain outcome. To pass is to anticipate and imagine a future, while to keep the ball and dribble is to stay in the moment for as long as possible." In Episode Seventeen we look back to 'Notes on Street Football' by Aleksandar Hemon, first published in Issue Ten in September 2013. What can kickabouts...
21m Dec 16, 2015
21m
Against Sanitised Football
"It is a cringe-worthy advert produced by Qatar Airways, starring the players of Barcelona. It is 40 seconds of distilled ideology at its purest. Messi and the gang roll up to the check-in desk in their rock-star gear. Behind them lies a void of squeaky clean airport marble, like a hospital for rich people. It is notable how the 105,000 fans who attend each home game have been erased from this ...
22m Dec 09, 2015
22m
The Peter Principle
"One good season is now usually enough to earn a big move, but football’s current landscape is claiming more and more victims of the game’s Peter Principle – 'everyone in an organisation keeps on getting promoted until they reach their level of incompetence. At that point, they stop being promoted.'" In Episode Fifteen we look ahead to Rupert Fryer’s ‘The Peter Principle’ from the upcoming Issu...
14m Dec 02, 2015
14m
Is Football Still Sport?
“What you see is 90 minutes of action treated almost as a distraction from the real business of sport: the narrative of news… Reality is not enough, so it is expanded, meaning is extrapolated, significance is assumed. And all of it around a structure to ensure maximum exposure, maximum interest.” In Episode Fourteen we bring you ‘Is Football Still Sport? by Rory Smith. Channelling the ‘structur...
14m Nov 25, 2015
14m
The Inverted Sheepdog
“Xavi’s movement is a kind of reverse sheepdog trick — instead of penning a flock in to an enclosed space, his darting, nipping and barking is about spreading them around the field, into unexplored, unpredictable spaces.” In Episode Thirteen we bring you ‘The Inverted Sheepdog’ by Graham Hunter, which looks in detail at how the Spain international became the creative hub of the all-conquering B...
41m Nov 18, 2015
41m
The Triumph and Tragedy of Football's Forgotten Pioneer
“Erbstein’s was an extraordinary life that was characterised by courage and resourcefulness in the face of adversity. That he and his family survived the holocaust was a matter of astonishing good fortune, but just four years after the end of the war, Erbstein was killed with his team, Il Grande Torino, in the Superga air crash.” In Episode Twelve of the Blizzard Podcast we bring you an extract...
28m Nov 11, 2015
28m
The Collaborator
“’He describes himself as a ‘fiddler’. I’d say he’s more than that: a born crook. He would attempt and succeed in staging the most abject of blackmails — the blackmail of hope. Dressed in a German uniform, he’d get out of a car seized from the maquis and embark on the following monologue: ‘To what extremities am I reduced, I, a Frenchman, forced to wear the German uniform, these awful rags! [.....
15m Nov 04, 2015
15m
The Lager Of Life
"It had been foolish of me to blame football for the dangerous passions it can unleash. Turning against football on these grounds would be like hating democracy because people voted for Thatcher." In Episode Ten of the Blizzard Podcast we bring you 'The Lager of Life' by Tim Vickery from Issue Nine. It is a game haunted by violence, but can it be blamed for it? Are big derby matches just a 90-m...
11m Oct 28, 2015
11m
Football's First Millionaire
John ‘Jack’ Slater, Bolton full-back between 1905 and 1914, would go on to own one of Britain’s largest industrial conglomerates. He survived financial crashes of many millions of pounds and went on to become football's first (and to date only) MP. In Episode Nine of the Blizzard Podcast we bring you John Harding's story of football's first millionaire from Issue Fourteen. The son of a mill-wor...
25m Oct 21, 2015
25m
The Bomb and the Bowler Hat
"It's possible something brilliantly illuminating happened there, part Escape To Victory, part footballing salon, part late-colonial Woodstock distilled through sternly moustachioed men of empire." In Episode Eight of the Blizzard Podcast we bring you Barney Ronay's 'The Bomb and the Bowler Hat' from Issue Three, looking back at the extraordinary collection of football minds interred in the Ruh...
22m Oct 14, 2015
22m
The Bicycle Thief
"Cultural exports have led us to believe that all Swedish people are blonde, live in IKEA-furnished houses, can produce catchy pop-songs and are mostly named Ulf. This is largely the case, but that isn't the Sweden Zlatan Ibrahimović grew up in." In Episode Seven of The Blizzard Podcast we bring you Lars Sivertsen's 'The Bicycle Thief' from Issue Eight which tackles the enigma that is Zlatan Ib...
33m Oct 07, 2015
33m
Never the Twain
"The GDR's national team - so notorious for choking when it counted - managed to qualify for a World Cup for the only time in their history. It was, of course, the World Cup in West Germany" In Episode Six of the Blizzard Podcast we bring you Uli Hesse's 'Never the Twain' looking back at the meeting between East Germany and West Germany at the 1974 World Cup, and the consequences of a meeting b...
30m Sep 30, 2015
30m
After the Earthquake
"Many of those parents who did arrive with their children were carrying Geiger counters. Before each match, they would hastily walk over the pitch to take measures of the air at grass level." In Episode Five of the Blizzard Podcast we look back at Javier Sauras and Felix Lill's 'After the Earthquake', and how football is playing its part in rebuilding the shattered communities around Fukushima,...
22m Sep 23, 2015
22m