The Blizzard

"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 the press and the impact of social media on the 'most tweeted sporting event of all time'. The relationship between reporter and spectator has been fundamentally altered, and the 'access' that was once the preserve of pork-pie-hatted men with notebooks is now democratised and available to all. If you have any feedback comments or suggestions email podcast@theblizzard.co.uk or find us on Twitter @blzzrd. Issue Six, like all issues of The Blizzard, is available on a pay-what-you-like basis from www.theblizzard.co.uk. Digital downloads cost as little as 1p each (RRP £3), while print versions are available from £

"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, it’s hard to escape the thought that we blew it." Episode 41 of the Blizzard Podcast features 'The Best Summer of My Life', Jonathan Wilson's editorial from Issue Twenty One which is available to subscribers now and goes on general sale from the 10th June. Something of a Euros special, the issue features articles on Pavel Vrba, Leonid Slutsky, André-Pierre Gignac, the Albania-Serbia drone controversy, as well as looking back to games at Euro 84, Euro 76 and a photo essay on the great Hungarian sides of the 50s. If you have any feedback comments or suggestions email podcast@theblizzard.co.uk or find us on Twitte

“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 the first half of the twentieth century, as a group of players from two of the country’s greatest sides colluded to fix a match. If you have any feedback comments or suggestions email podcast@theblizzard.co.uk or find us on Twitter @blzzrd. Issue Ten, like all issues of The Blizzard, is available on a pay-what-you-like basis from www.theblizzard.co.uk. Digital downloads cost as little as 1p each (RRP £3), while print versions are available from £6 + postage (RRP £12). You can also find us on the Kindle and Google Play stores.

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 football chat, the best goals they’d ever seen scored live and the Chablis in the Auxerre press room. Don’t forget that Issue Twenty One of the Blizzard – something of a Euros special – is available to pre-order now and will be released on 7th June to subscribers, and on a general pay-what-you-like download basis on 10th June to coincide with the start of the tournament. If you have any feedback comments or suggestions email podcast@theblizzard.co.uk or find us on Twitter @blzzrd. All issues of The Blizzard are available on a pay-what-you-like basis from www.theblizzard.co.uk. Digital downloads cost as little a

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 football chat, the best goals they’d ever seen scored live and the Chablis in the Auxerre press room. Don’t forget that Issue Twenty One of the Blizzard – something of a Euros special – is available to pre-order now and will be released on 7th June to subscribers, and on a general pay-what-you-like download basis on 10th June to coincide with the start of the tournament. If you have any feedback comments or suggestions email podcast@theblizzard.co.uk or find us on Twitter @blzzrd. All issues of The Blizzard are available on a pay-what-you-like basis from www.theblizzard.co.uk. Digital downloads cost as little

“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 Sentimental Journey’ by Jonathan Wilson, including a chat with the man himself to put the article in a bit more context. In a world of superclubs, just what is the point of ordinary teams? Is the nature of David overcoming Goliath the only ‘true’ version of success, and can clubs who habitually inhabit the latter stages of the Champions League truly celebrate achievement that doesn’t act as consecration of a lifelong quest, but merely represents the fact that it was ‘their turn’ to win? There's still time for you to win a signed Sergio Aguero Manchester City home shirt, too - for full details head to www.theblizzard

"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 in England’s worst deprivation?" In Episode Thirty Seven we revisit ‘City and the City’ by David Conn. Looking at the takeover of Manchester City by Sheikh Mansour (and at its previous owner, Thaksin Shinawatra), David places the mega-rich gulf owners' stewardship of the club in the wider economic landscape. What does their ownership of the club mean for the city itself? Why is there still a juxtaposition of investment in sporting facilities in the east of the city while it's still home to some of the most deprived boroughs in the UK? There's also an opportunity for you to win a signed Sergio Aguero Manchester

“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-league underdogs in an FA Cup quarter-final.” In Episode Thirty Six we look back to ‘One Hit Wonders’ by Richard Jolly, our Eight Bells feature from Issue Nineteen. Some players flicker brightly and briefly in the footballing consciousness, and from Jimmy Glass to Roy Dwight, Steve Morrow to Roy Essandoh, we feature some of the players whose names have gone down in history, albeit not with the longest of entries in the footballing Who’s Who. If you have any feedback comments or suggestions email podcast@theblizzard.co.uk or find us on Twitter @blzzrd. Issue Nineteen, like all issues of The Blizzard, is available

“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 Five we look back on ‘The Search for Space’ by Michael Cox, from way back in our pilot issue, Issue Zero, in March 2011. He looks at how a theory of political polling reflects something similar in football tactics. As New Labour were exploiting the ‘median voter theory’ in the mid-to-late 1990s, a number of Premier League imports – Bergkamp, Zola and Cantona – were exploiting spatial theories on the pitch. If you have any feedback comments or suggestions email podcast@theblizzard.co.uk or find us on Twitter @blzzrd. Issue Zero, like all issues of The Blizzard, is available on a pay-what-you-like basis from www.th

"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 Thirty Four we revisit ‘Echoes in Eternity’ by Paul Simpson from Issue Sixteen, which attempts to answer the question of which manager has had the greatest influence on future generations. Ferguson’s ‘enfants’ span Europe (Blanc at PSG, Solksjaer at Molde, Berg at Legia Warsaw), and closer to home his players have managed, assisted or trained at just over 50 clubs. Is he the most influential manager of all time, however? What about Revie, Clough, Shankly or Paisley? From overseas, where do Bielsa, Sacchi and Cruyff fit in? And why does ‘the Professor’ Wenger have such a comparatively low hit-rate? If you have any fee

"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 Whisky Option' by Simon Curtis from Issue Seventeen, which details the often unmentioned Portuguese successes of the larger-than-life boss Malcolm Allison. His brief and successful stay at Sporting, and subsequent mixed spells at Vitoria de Setubal and Farense mirrors the domestic career of one of football's great coaching innovators, and his legacy lasts to this day thanks to the impact he made on the son of Vitoria's goalkeeping coach. Simon Curtis is a freelance football writer based in Lisbon. He contributes regularly to ESPN and Champions, and has written for FourFourTwo, Reuters, Worldsoccer.com, Portugoal.

"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 touches on the Italian captain's unusual journey to the finals - from his orphaned upbringing and rejection by Inter, through to an abortive international retirement - and his remarkable recovery from arthroscopic knee surgery to play the full 120 minutes in the blazing Pasadena Rosebowl sunshine. Sheridan Bird writes for Champions, World Soccer, Creative Review, Sporting iD, FourFourTwo and the Manchester United and England match programmes. He has written for Gazzetta della Sport online and appeared on Italian state radio RAI 1 during Euro 2012. Twitter: @SheridanBird If you have any feedback comments or suggesti

"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 television." In Episode Thirty One we look at Brian Phillips's 'The Real Problem' from Issue Five, which tackles the thorny subject of 'the real fan'. Aren't they just a rhetorical device deployed by someone to strengthen their particular argument? The culture of sport is changing, and with it the way we access and support our favourite sides. Is there such a thing as a 'real fan' anymore? Brian Phillips was a staff writer for Grantland and the editor of the football blog The Run of Play. His writing has appeared in Slate, Deadspin, Poetry, and The Hudson Review, among other publications. Twitter: @runofplay If you have

“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 itself or the fact that such an unrecognisable brand was able to buy it.” In Episode Thirty, we look at Jake Walerius’s 'Fading Embers' from the recently released Issue Twenty. While the rest of MLS booming, what’s gone wrong for the Chicago Fire? Is it all down to meddling owner Andrew Hauptman? The article also assesses how the MLS boom plays into the cultural landscape of American sports in general. The overall success of the league will have much to do with how MLS confronts the tensions between a burgeoning family-led audience and the influence of global football culture and a more knowledgeable fanbase.

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's most memorable moments covering football and much more. If you have any feedback comments or suggestions email podcast@theblizzard.co.uk or find us on Twitter @blzzrd. All issues of The Blizzard are available on a pay-what-you-like basis from www.theblizzard.co.uk. Digital downloads cost as little as 1p each (RRP £3), while print versions are available from £6 + postage (RRP £12). You can also find us on the Kindle and Google Play stores.

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 Antonio Conte will be a good fit at Chelsea, some chat about the Champions League and much more. We also have a brief chat with Jonathan Wilson about the newly released/soon to be released (delete according to your status as a subscriber) Issue Twenty, where he picks out some highlights including the days before Zenit had any money, a Moldovan photo essay, and our first crossword. If you have any feedback comments or suggestions email podcast@theblizzard.co.uk or find us on Twitter @blzzrd. All issues of The Blizzard are available on a pay-what-you-like basis from www.theblizzard.co.uk. Digital downloads cost

"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, we look back at David Lynch's 'Ultra Violence' from Issue Four. Ultras have put aside their differences and united for the greater good in Cairo, but to what extent are they generals or just foot soldiers of the revolution? After the horrors of the Port Said stadium disaster, in which 70 Al-Ahly fans died at the hands of Al-Masry fans (or instruments of the state - it's disputed), the role that the Cairene clubs' ultras played in the downfall of the Mubarak regime, and the 'second revolution' is much analysed. David Lynch is an award winning journalist and author currently based in Cairo. His second book is 'A Di

"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 looks at Ireland's 'complicated' relationship with alcohol - from the euphemistic 'Paul McGrath's knees' through to Giovanni Trapattoni bopping Andy Reid over the head with a copy of Gazzetto della Sport, via the meltdown in Saipan, Ireland and its footballers have a long relationship with the demon drink. Dion Fanning is the football correspondent of the Irish Sunday Independent. He was nominated as Irish Sports Columnist of the Year and Irish Sports Journalist of the Year in 2012 and 2013. He lives in London. For more information on our Q&A event in Dublin on 3rd March, mentioned at the beginning of the episod

"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-Back', which examines how it was really Steve Nicol, and not John Barnes, Peter Beardsley or John Aldridge that was the key behind Liverpool's title-winning side of 1987-88. His fearless foraging from full-back (both left and right), and a number of early goals and outstanding performances, gave the new Liverpool side the momentum to sweep all before them and take their seventeenth title. Scott Murray writes for the Guardian. He is co-author of And Gazza Misses The Final, a history of the World Cup through the medium of minute-by-minute match reports. He also co-wrote The Anatomy of Liverpool and Phantom of the Op

"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. Boyd, like all cult heroes, had his share of ups and downs at the north-east club as the local child prodigy-turned-disappointment-turned-redeemed hero. His role in Hartlepool's near promotion in the 2004/05 season is fondly remembered. For more information on our Q&A event in Dublin on 3rd March, mentioned at the beginning of the episode, featuring a panel of Jonathan Wilson, Philippe Auclair and James Horncastle, head to www.theblizzard.co.uk/events. Podcast listeners can save 10% on ticket prices by using the code 'blizzarddub' at the checkout. Harry Pearson is the author of The Far Corner. His blog about