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Excludes Rugby World Cup; Rugby League World Cup; any association football match staged at the Stadium where the event holder is not The FA or the Football League; and any bid event including the UEFA Champions League Final. We will try to secure tickets from the event owner wherever possible. Editor’s Note Jonathan Wilson, Editor There are times when being a football racism has somehow become another journalist is tiring. It’s not the late football issue, and as such tends to be nights, the long hours and the ceaseless debated on partisan grounds. travelling - although by the end of the season that is beginning to wear you But actually the most grating thing is the down – so much as the relentless anger kneejerk snideness. Earlier this season, you have to deal with. Hooliganism may after Barcelona had beaten AC Milan 4-0 have fallen away but football is a terribly in the last 16 of the Champions League angry sport. to overturn a 2-0 fi rst-leg defi cit, I wrote a piece for the Guardian refl ecting on Maybe it’s always been that way and the away goals rule and whether a) it was it’s just that social media has revealed ever fair and b) even if it were, whether it, but it’s a terrifying thought that so it has become counterproductive. It’s many should go around waiting to be an issue of regulation, it’s not about outraged, desperate to fi nd evidence of fundamental beliefs or one team over disrespect, that so many should believe another: it’s hard to imagine people in the most absurd conspiracy theories, getting too worked up over it. that so many should seemingly spend so much time sitting around waiting for the The following night, Arsenal – to general opportunity to be unpleasant. I used to surprise – won 2-0 in Munich, to go out think Eastenders was ridiculous because of the Champions League against Bayern I couldn’t believe nastiness was a default on away goals, having lost the fi rst leg 3-1. setting; maybe I was naïve. Not surprisingly, a lot of Arsenal fans then retweeted the piece, as did the US journalist It’s almost impossible to write anything Grant Wahl. I then got a reply from an about football without annoying American sneering that I’d only made an somebody. The most banal observation issue of it because it involved a Premier will cause off ence. You’ll be at a game, League club. He obviously hadn’t read the something will happen 30 yards away, piece: if he had, it would have been clear you’ll tweet about it, and you’ll fi nd it had been written about Barcelona. But yourself abused for reporting something even if he had, and even if I had questioned you saw clearly, something backed up the validity of the away goals rule on the by replays. Often you’ll draw fi re from back of the Arsenal game, so what? I am both sides of an argument, that you’re a British journalist and the piece was in a somehow simultaneously both too British paper: it’s hardly outrageous that it tough and not tough enough on biting/ should discuss an issue when it became bad tackles/ diving/ racism (delete relevant to a team based in Britain. as applicable). And, of course, the most objectionable aspect of that last This obsession not with the contents of sentence is that something as serious as a piece but with its existence is bizarre. 3 Somebody may not be interested in a apogee for me when Tottenham’s game piece on the away goals rule, which is against Southampton in May was delayed fi ne; nothing compels them to read it. for 30 minutes because large numbers Somebody may not like carrots but they of fans had been held up getting to the wouldn’t email the farmer to tell him not game by a chemical spill on the M25. to grow them. But somebody actually Pretty much everybody in the press room went to the eff ort of composing a tweet at White Hart Lane reacted in the same to complain that I’d written a piece he’d way: an irritated shrug at half an hour hadn’t read. As a rule, you try to ignore added to the day, but an acceptance such people but occasionally the drip- that it was probably the right decision. drip of attrition gets the better of you. So But my Twitter feed fi lled up with people I called him out on it. He sneered back (it expressing disbelief, furious that their seemed to be his natural mode) that of sitting on their sofas watching television course he hadn’t read it as it was in the had been inconvenienced by people who Guardian. So he was complaining about had paid for tickets actually trying to get a piece he hadn’t read on a website he to a match. I confess it was something doesn’t read. Still, he ended with a smiley of a watershed moment, the fi rst time I face, so it was all alright. realised that there is a world of television consumers who actually see themselves It’s a minor issue, obviously. All that story as more important than people who tells you is that there’s one bloke in the attend the game in person, who US who for about fi ve minutes of his actually thought their cable subscription life acted like a prick. It happens. But it outweighed safety concerns on the seems to happen an awful lot. There is Seven Sisters Road. Again, in and of itself a strange culture of entitlement around it’s a minor issue; what’s worrying is the football. An opposing player goes to take trend it represents. a throw-in and you’re in the front row. What’s the natural reaction? Is it a) to The self-entitlement is also manifested in think, “Look! I’m six feet from Full-Back the willingness of so many on Twitter and X”? b) to ponder that Full-Back X looks a in comments sections to pass judgement lot thinner in real life? Or c) to hurl abuse on others. The media as a whole, of at Full-Back X while making wanker course, can be guilty of this and does gestures? For far too many people it’s c). have an annoying tendency to go after Full-Back X has, after all, had the temerity low-hanging fruit. This is where the to come near them wearing the shirt of familiar “lazy journalism” jibe does have an opposing team so he had it coming. currency, less in terms of the hours put in than the intellectual energy expended. It’s A similar reasoning seems to motivate easier to follow the familiar templates of those who discover a journalist disagrees previous stories than to work out what is with them and respond with abuse and actually going on and apply perspective. accusations of bias. How could it be? How could somebody possibly think Twitter and comments sections should diff erently to me? They must be an idiot/ be a boon, a way for people with a wilfully drumming up controversy/ in shared interest to interact. It’s a positive the pay of somebody. This reached an when journalists are called to account 4 for a mistake or a misjudgement or if they are forced to defend their opinions. But that’s not the way it’s working. What’s happening is a grim attritional process that means most journalists give comments sections at most a cursory glance. Worthwhile criticism is lost amid the idiocy and the abuse. But actually the situation is worse than that and extends far beyond the confi nes of social media reaction to journalism. That is just a symptom of a wider malaise. Football, the one global sport, something that should be a great unifi er, has come to be dominated by the angry and the self-entitled. It’s terribly sad. June 2013 5 Contents Contents The Blizzard, Issue Nine Introduction 61. Davidde Corran, Genesis 03. Editor’s Note How a tournament in China in 1988 changed women’s football for ever Iran Theory 09. Gwendolyn Oxenham, The Vacant Lot 70. Joel Richards, The Weight of the Armband The search for a kickabout in Iran is complicated by religion and gender The Argentina coach Alejandro Sabella politics explains why he made Lionel Messi national captain 26. Noah Davies, Confl ict Management 74. Simon Kuper, Pep’s Four Golden Rules Dan Gaspar is a key part of Iran’s qualifying campaign for Brazil 2014 How Guardiola made Barcelona the despite holding a US passport masters of the pressing game 79.