The Blizzard - The Football Quarterly: Issue One

This is an enjoyable edition. As expected, part of the contributions deal with the refreshingly entertaining Brazil World Cup, including an investigation into that infamous 1-7 semi-final score. There is also a well-written essay by Ben Lyttleton on the Dutch issues with penalty shoot-outs - it is not just England who have a major problem with these in international tournaments!The rest of the edition is focussed mostly on historical issues - best written articles are John Harding's study on the wealthy ex-footballer businessman and MP Jack Slater, and Philippe Auclair's short item on Michel Hidalgo and the renaissance of French belief at the 1978 World Cup. The fiction contributions do not do much for me. The final article by Jack Lang is an informative study of eight examples of domestic Brazilian football disputes that illustrate the unfortunately byzantine, corrupt and crony-dominated nature of its league football.

This is a fantastic, enriching read for anyone who loves football and the more unique and less heard about stories!

Super read. Wilson/Kuper being 2 of my favourites plus Sid Lowe too.Thoroughly enjoyable read.

Excellent well written and thought provoking articles on the less often covered topics in world football