The Blizzard Football Quarterly: Issue 12

The Blizzard: A Quarterly Football Publication

The Blizzard is a quarterly football publication, put together by a cooperative of journalists and authors. Its main aim is to provide a platform for top-class writers from across the globe to enjoy the space and the freedom to write what they like about the football stories that matter to them.

Contents of Issue Twelve

The Rivals

• Sid Lowe, Power Play - Carles Rexach and Jorge Valdano discuss the changing nature of the Real Madrid-Barcelona rivalry
• Miguel Delaney, Gamechanger - Johan Cruyff on his role in creating the style of Barcelona and modern football
• Graham Hunter, An Honourable Man - How Vicente del Bosque overcame rejection by Real Madrid to lead Spain to glory

A Game of Chess

• Philippe Auclair, Beyond the System - Could the lessons of chess show football the way to an exciting new future?
• Scott Oliver, Play Jazz, not Chess - Reflections on football, order and the imagination, and the need for improvisation

Theory

• Steve Menary, Maximum Opportunity - Was Charles Hughes a long-ball zealot, or pragmatist reacting to necessity?
• Sergio Levinsky, The Cult of the Pibe - Argentina's love affair with scruffy urchins with feet of gold

Defenders of the Faith

• Paul Brown, The Birth of the Fan - Why Victorians flocked to watch 22 men kicking a pig's bladder about
• James Montague, Jerusalem Syndrome - The mysterious disappearance of Guma Aguiar, the saviour of Beitar Jerusalem
• Brian Homewood, Identity Crisis - Unpicking the convoluted threads of Mexico's franchise system
• Bartosz Nowicki, Dream Fulfilled - Relief and glee as Cardiff City finally found their way into the Premier League

Against the Odds

• Robin Bairner, Sleeping Giant - In 1982, Jean-Pierre Adams was given anaesthetic before knee surgery. He hasn't woken up.
• Richard Jolly, And Not to Yield - Only one sportsman can match Ryan Giggs for longevity: the New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter
• Javier Sauras and Felix Lill, The Street Dogs of Manila - The Philippines are rising through the rankings, but are they Filipino enough?
• Matthew Campelli, Second City Syndrome - Why has Birmingham struggled for football success for 30 years?

Polemics

• Alex Keble, Artist or Machine? - An investigation into the paradoxical relationship between sport and creativity
• Tim Vickery, Alternate Title - The lessons sports journalists can draw from the Monkees

Fiction

• Iain Macintosh, The Quantum of Bobby - After his exile in Qatar, Bobby Manager returns to English football. Or does he…?

Greatest Games

• Rob Smyth, England 1 West Germany 1* - World Cup semi-final, 4 July 1990, Stadio delle Alpi, Turin

Eight Bells

• Michael Yokhin, Non-identical twins - A selection of twins who looked the same but played very differently

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