ISSUE SIX FAIR 1 THE SQUALL Matt Thacker It’s six and out for The Squall. This sort code 40-05-17 and account number will be our final issue although if 71515942, or you can pay via PayPal to circumstances demand that it returns paypal.me/thesquall. Any money paid into at some point, we will be back if we can either of these accounts will be used for make it work. We set up The Squall six the sole purpose of paying writers who long lockdown months ago as a digital have written for The Squall. football magazine to give freelance writers a forum for their work. Not just October 2020 so they could get paid to write, but so they had something to aim for, a sense of job satisfaction at a time when such We are very grateful to all of the people satisfaction was in short supply. The who have waived fees and donated to return of football, however fragile, has The Squall since we announced the meant more work for freelancers. project. Special thanks go to: Nick Ames, Philippe Auclair, John Brewin, Kieran We hope that The Squall has managed Canning, James Corbett, John Cross, to showcase great football writing on Martin da Cruz, Miguel Delaney, Andrew subjects you are unlikely to read about Downie, Peter Drury, Ken Early, Emmet anywhere else, and that you enjoy our Gates, Sasha Goryunov, John Harding, final offering, the “Fair” issue. Simon Hart, Gary Hartley, Ian Hawkey, Frank Heinen, Tom Holland, Adam Hurrey, Initially The Squall was supported by Elis James, Neil Jensen, Samindra Kunti, Blizzard writers waiving fees as well as Jonathan Liew, Simon Mills, James by generous contributions from readers, Montague, David Owen, MM Owen, supporters and quizzers. Over the last two Simone Pierotti, Jack Pitt-Brooke, Gavin months this revenue has understandably Ramjuan, Callum Rice-Coates, Philip dried up and we are no longer in a Ross, Paul Simpson, Marcus Speller, Jon position to produce The Squall. Spurling, Seb Stafford-Bloor, Ed Sugden, Jonathan Wilson, Suzy Wrack, and We would love it if you would give Shinobu Yamanaka. And huge thanks to one final push, to enable us to pay the Getty Images, for use of the photos. writers of this issue without jeopardising other ventures. If you are happy to do so, please pay into our bank account with 2 EDITOR'S NOTE Jonathan Wilson For now at least, this will be the final Issue Thirty-Eight is out now, with issue of The Squall. We set up at the features on BeoutQ, South Africa, Carlos beginning of lockdown to try to provide Tévez, Néstor Ortigoza, Carlo Carcano, work and revenue for freelances in Fulham and Birmingham City [https:// unprecedented and confusing times www.theblizzard.co.uk/shop/product/ and, thanks to the generosity and hard issue-thirty-eight] and Issue Thirty-Nine work of a lot of people, we were able will be out in December. Never forget that to help at least some journalists and a subscription makes a perfect Christmas photographers. So a huge thank you gift. The Greatest Games podcast will to those who waived fees and worked return soon, and we’re hoping to expand for free to give us the liquidity to our audio offerings. keep going. And thank you as well to everybody who donated and paid for So, once again, many thanks for your their copies or joined in the weekly quiz. support. The sense of community, of writers and readers pulling together in Life has not returned to normal and, the early weeks of the crisis, was both certainly in the UK, it seems more likely touching and encouraging. Please that in the next few months restrictions continue to support The Blizzard and our will be tightened rather than loosened. sadly rather uncommercial sense of what Football, though, is back – sort of – and journalism can be, and enjoy this final while nobody could say the immediate issue of The Squall. future looks anything other than bleak for football writers, there is at least a level of October 2020 certainty about where we’re going. We said when we launched that The Squall was a temporary initiative, and we also said that ultimately it would have to be money-making. It’s just about held its own, but no magazine, not even one with a charitable function, can exist forever on goodwill and favours. So we’re closing down for now. It may be that as the virus develops, if there is another lockdown, that it makes sense to return, but currently it makes more sense for us to focus energies and resources on The Blizzard. 3 AN UNMISSABLE HIGHLIGHTS PACKAGE The Best of the First Five Years features 23 brilliant essays originally published between 2011 and 2016. Buy now at theblizzard.co.uk 4 CONTENTS The Squall, Issue Six – Fair 8. John Irving, What is Fair Play? 44. Ewan Flynn, The Inside Man Is football fair, can it be fair, and what do How Alan Sugar benefited from the birth we even mean by ‘fair’? of the Premier League 14. Luke Alfred, The World’s Fair 50. Dave Bowler, A Fair Crack of How a small team from Canada took the Whip? gold in the football at the 1904 Olympics A history of Alf Ramsey’s England reign in one-cap wonders 20. Samuel Cox, The Deliberate Miss 56. Jon Arnold, More Equal than Morten Wieghorst and how putting a Others penalty wide became the right thing to do Grenada v Barbados 1993, the game in which own-goals made sense 26. Tony Richardson, Equality How a Spurs fan found joy and 58. Vadim Furmanov, Nothing Left competitiveness in Belarus To Live By The scourge of match-fixing in the USSR 32. Tom Clements, Farewell to the and attempts to eradicate it Fairs’ Cup Barcelona v Leeds and a 64. Richard Jolly, Derby, Leeds and commemorative friendly in 1971 the European Curse The European Cup and the controversial 38. Martin da Cruz, Viveza Criolla exits of two English champion How the art of deception became central to Uruguay’s football identity 70. 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This is why we make three communication should be addressed to the free articles available to read for everyone, this office: every month, at www.theblizzard.co.uk The Blizzard Digital Version Unit 34, (Current & Back Issues) 4th floor Bedser Stand, All issues of The Blizzard are available Kia Oval, to download for Kindle, Android, iOS London, and PC/Mac via the Amazon Kindle and SE11 5SS Google Play Stores. • RRP: £3 (or local currency Email: [email protected] equivalent). Telephone: +44 (0) 203 696 5730 Website: www.theblizzard.co.uk Printed Version Facebook: www.facebook.com/blzzrd (Current & Back Issues) Twitter: @blzzrd Purchase a physical copy of The Blizzard in all its luxurious, tactile, sensual glory About The Blizzard at: www.theblizzard.co.uk. If you haven’t Editor Jonathan Wilson felt our cover-varnish and smelled Publisher The Blizzard Media Ltd the inner genius, you haven’t properly www.theblizzard.co.uk experienced its awesome true form. Design TriNorth Ltd Read it, or leave it on your coffee table to www.trinorth.co.uk wow visitors. Copyright • RRP: £12 (+P&P) All content is © The Blizzard Media Ltd and may not be reproduced without explicit consent. Thanks to Jeanette G Sturis at the Kingsley Motel, Manjimup, for kind use of Warren Walker’s original sketches of Dog. 7 WHAT IS FAIR PLAY? Is football fair, can it be fair, and what do we even mean by ‘fair’? BY JOHN IRVING Paolo Di Canio receives an award from Paul Gerrard for his show of sportsmanship earlier in the season, 2001 “Winning isn’t important, it’s the only game’ is its fairness.” The English is dodgy thing that counts.” Attributed to the but the message is clear.