UR

RLY / ISSUE FO
E
T
R
A
U
Q
LL
A
B
T
THE FOO

Sample
Edition

Issue Four - Sample Edition

The following is a free sample of Issue
One of The Blizzard, including excerpts
from some of its articles, the notes from
the editor and a full list of its contents.
Our full issues run to 190+ pages, so
while this only offers you a snapshot, its
hopefully enough to pique your interest
for more.

What is The Blizzard?

As our editor, Jonathan Wilson, put it at
the launch of our pilot issue:
I cant have been the only one who
felt journalism as a whole was missing
something, that there should be more
space for more in-depth pieces, for
detailed reportage, history and analysis.
Was there a way to accommodate articles
of several thousand words? Could we do
something that was neither magazine nor
book, but somewhere in between?
The Blizzard is not the organ of any one
individual. Rather it aims to provide a
platform for writers, British and foreign,
to write about football-related subjects
important to them, be that at the
highest level or the lowest, at home or
abroad. Eclecticism is the key. There is
no attempt to impose an editorial line;
all opinions expressed are those of the
individual author.

The priority is the product rather than

prot; the aim is to remain true to our
ethos and to provide an alternative to
that which already exists.
At The Blizzard, we like to be adaptable.
Thats why we offer up our football
quarterly not only as a digital download
for you to pore over on your phone,
tablet or e-reader, but also give you
the option to let our lovely, textual
creations adorn your coffee table,
bookshelf or bathroom in their
beautiful hard copy format.

Pay-what-you-like
And because were not only adaptable
but also friendly, we want you all (yes,
all of you) to read what weve got to
say. Were so friendly, in fact, that we
operate on a pay-what-you-like basis,
and have done since day one. Our
digital download editions start from
as little as 1p each, which means you
could download the whole of our back
catalogue for less than the price of
the skinniest of skinny lattes, while our
hard copy editions can be yours from
6 (+ P&P).
If you like what you see over the following
pages, visit www.theblizzard.co.uk to nd
out more.

Contents

Contents
The Blizzard, Issue Four

Introduction
04.

53.

Editors Note

How the understated radicalism of

Arthur Rowe dened Tottenhams style

Barcelona
09.

Graham Hunter, The Inverted

Sheepdog

66.

The inside story of how Xavi emerged as

the central hub of the worlds greatest
team
24.

David Winner, Corrida of

Uncertainty

71.

Theory
75.

Alex Ferguson
Sir Alex Ferguson tells Philippe Auclair
about his early start, the importance of
continuity and his need to be alone

88.

Ian Hawkey, Capital Failings

Football clubs in democratic capitals
tend to underperform and London is no
exception

Sam Kelly, The New

Enganche
Javier Pastore talks about his move to
Paris Saint-Germain and living up to the
playmaking ideal

London
49.

Patrick Dessault, DeschampsSuaudeau

Didier Deschamps and Jean-Claude
Suaudeau debate the modern vogue for
attacking football

Interview
40.

Bob Yule, The Bald Eagle and

the Modern Way
How Jim Smith brought the 3-5-2 to
Queens Park Rangers

Scott Oliver, The Other

Rival, Another Way
When the nastiest rivalry in Spain was
between Barcelona and Athletic

Nick Szczepanik, South of the

River
For a spell in the eighties, Charlton
Athletic, Crystal Palace, Millwall and
Wimbledon challenged the elite

How the cruelty of tiki-taka resembles

bull-ghting
28.

Martin Cloake, A Very English

Visionary

Africa
93.

Pablo Manriquez and

Backpagepix, Unlikely
Hosts, Unlikelier Winners
Images from the 2012 African
Cup of Nations.

Contents

100. Jonathan

Wilson, Victory Song

151. Robert

Langham, Continental

Drift

How Zambias emotional triumph

restored the zest to the Cup of Nations

Kazakhstan has slipped behind

Uzbekistan since it abandoned Asia

122. Gary

Al-Smith, The Barefoot

Pioneers
CK Gyam explains how a bootless tour
to Britain helped shape the game in
Ghana

126. David

Football Manager
156. The Ballad of Bobby Manager:

My Autobiography
When somebody takes their game
of Football Manager just a little too
seriously...

Lynch, Ultra Violence

After the horrors of Port Said, the exact

role of ultras in the downfall of Hosny
Mubarak remains unclear

Greatest Games
169. Dan Edwards, Racing 1 Celtic 0

In Appreciation Of
134. Sheridan

Intercontinental Cup nal play off,

Estadio Centenario, Montevideo, 4
November 1967

Bird, Ronaldo in

Moscow
A slalom though the Luzhniki mud
conrmed the genius of O Fenomeno

Eight Bells
184. Scott Murray, Shirt Tales

137.

Juliet Jacques, Toussaint on

Zidane
What the World Cup nal headbutt
meant to the Belgian writer

Information

Polemics

120. T-shirts

143. Pete

Grathoff, Pel v Beckham

Which of the icons had the greater

impact on football in the USA?
147.

The history behind a selection of iconic

kits

194. Contributors
196. Subcriptions
197.

About The Blizzard

Brian Phillips, The Other Cup

How do you solve a problem like the
Europa League?

Editors Note
Jonathan Wilson, Editor
Id barely sat down in the media centre
before the Cup of Nations nal when a
Nigerian journalist grabbed my arm and
dragged me over to look at something
on my laptop. Shed taken footage of the
Patrice Evra-Luis Surez non-handshake,
had slowed it down and magnied it, and
was insisting you could see the Frenchman
fractionally withdraw his hand as the
Uruguayan approached. She played it over
and over again, the same pictures of hand
approaching hand and no contact being
made. Is that really what weve become?
In the previous week Fabio Capello had
resigned over the John Terry affair and
Harry Redknapp had been acquitted of
charges of tax evasion, prompting a series of
speculative pieces about who he might pick
should he be the new England manager.
Within days, Rangers and Portsmouth had
gone into administration.
All the while I looked on in bewilderment
from Equatorial Guinea and then Gabon,
following Zambias sentimental journey
to the Cup of Nations crown and feeling
extremely grateful I wasnt having to deal
with the tawdry minutiae of football back
home. Instead, I watched an awful lot of
men cry, because they felt they had let
their country down, because they saw their
country being torn apart and, ultimately,
from the catharsis of having won a nal in
the city in which their country suffered its
worst football tragedy.
Stories like Zambias happen only
infrequently, of course, but it was still hard to
wonder, reading the abuse that owed back

and forth on every Surez blog, whether we

in Britain hadnt lost sight of what actually
matters about sport: the sense of emotion
and drama and human striving to achieve
something extraordinary.
And then you look at the Guardian blogs
and you see my Cup of Nations pieces
drawing 20 or 30 comments while anything
on Capello or Surez gets several hundred.
Its not hard to see the economic argument
for focussing on the mainstream and the
sensationalist or why so many other papers
barely seemed to acknowledge the Cup of
Nations was happening.
That, of course, is why The Blizzard exists,
to cater for minority tastes neglected by
more traditional media. Last March, when
we launched, we didnt know whether
enough others shared our interest in the
in-depth and the esoteric to make the
magazine economically viable. Thanks to
the hard work of huge numbers of people,
were still here.
As we celebrate our rst anniversary, were
much more optimistic, but we need to keep
pushing. I know I say this in every issue, but
please do keep talking about us, do keep
telling people what were about. We have
no advertising budget: word of mouth is all
weve got. Thanks.
March 2012

St Pauli
The Hutterites are
convinced hell is directly
underneath the Reeperbahn.

48
London

...the thriving atmosphere at Tottenham,

the atmosphere of good football for the
sake of good football.

South of the River

South of the River

For a spell in the eighties, Charlton Athletic, Crystal
Palace, Millwall and Wimbledon challenged the elite
By Nick Szczepanik

South London, to fans who came to the

game with the advent of the Premier
League in 1992, probably seems rather
similar in football terms to, say, East
Anglia not exactly a hotbed, but with
one or two clubs who occasionally
spend a season or two among the elite
before sinking back to their natural level.
You can see why. Crystal Palace seem
to have a new board, manager and kit
every season and have been as likely to
le for administration as challenge for
promotion. Charlton Athletics tenure
in the top ight is beginning to fade
from memory although Chris Powells
rebuilt team is promising an upturn in
fortunes. Millwall look relatively stable
without threatening to bring their, er,
unique following to a Premier League
stadium near you. And AFC Wimbledon
are widely admired but may soon hit
the ceiling of what a fan-owned club
can achieve after winning promotion to
League Two last season.
It was not always thus. In 1989, Palaces
promotion to the old rst divisionunder
Steve Coppell meant that all four of the
capitals league clubs based south of the
Thameswere looking forward to spending
the 1989-90 season in the top ight
together. This state of glory lasted a single
campaign Charlton and Millwall were
relegated at the end of the season but

66

for all four clubs, achieving their exalted

status was a considerable achievement.
Millwall had been promoted to the top
echelon for the rst time in their 103year history a year earlier under the
Glaswegian John Docherty, enabling
them to welcome, if that is the word,
the aristocrats of English football to
the bear-pit that was the old Den. With
Teddy Sheringham and Tony Cascarino a
potent spearhead, they had even topped
the rst division table after beating
QPR 3-2 on 1 October 1988, eventually
nishing a very respectable tenth, even if
it was their lowest position of the season.
Wimbledonwere relatively old hands,
having gone up in 1986, but their elevation
had taken far less time. They had been in
theFootball League for only eight seasons
when they reached the top, and Plough
Lanewasstill more or less a non-league
ground. Charlton had come up alongside
Millwall, which was a staggering feat
bearing in mind that they were effectively
homeless, groundsharing with newlypromoted Palace, who were on one of the
upswings of their yo-yo existence.
If it all seems hard to imagine, remember
that this was not todays glitzy Premier
League of full, all-seated stadiums and
player wages funded by television deals
and wealthy benefactors. Facilities were

Nick Szczepanik

extremely basic, with more fans standing

than sitting, and corporate facilities
unknown.Even in densely-populated
south London, Palace in that 1988-89
season attracted an average gate of only
17,105. Millwall drew 12,454, Charltons
10,978 was the highest of their four
seasons at Selhurst and Wimbledon,
despite the highest league placing of the
four, had the lowest crowds, an average
of 7,651.

signed from Gillingham, recalls a man

with the eccentricity of a Brian Clough:
Sometimes hed call you up at home,
tell you to come into his office and youd
think hed want to discuss something,
but then hed just want to have a drink
with you. Sometimes hed say, Tell me
your best team, and when you did hed
say, So youd drop him, would you? and
tell the other bloke, He said he wouldnt
play you.

On such gates, managers often had to

hunt for bargain signings or raid the nonleague ranks where now top-ight clubs
would simply look abroad. But in a year
in which Arsenal, the champions, did not
have a single foreign player and Sergei
Baltacha of IpswichTowncounted as an
exotic import, it could be done.

He was a real wind-up merchant, he

loved playing games. But John was very
sure of himself and what he wanted, and
he got a kick out of being disliked, in a
strange, dark way. But I liked him, he was
very good for me. I think he found it very
hard to leave Millwall when the time came
because he loved being around the club.

It was a golden era for South

Londonclubs, the Palace assistant
manager Lenny Lawrence, then the
manager of Charlton, said. I think it was
the management. Steve Coppell did a great
job at Palace, Johnny Doc at Millwall, Dave
Bassett at Wimbledon and then Bobby
Gould and eventually Joe Kinnear.

Alan Pardew, now the manager of

Newcastle United but then a mideld
player with Palace, remembers 1989-90
as probably my best year in football.
The season began unpromisingly with
a 9-0 defeat by Liverpool, but ended
with an FA Cup nal appearance against
Manchester United, Pardews winning
goal against Liverpoolin the seminal extracting maximum revenge
for that earlier thrashing. But he also
recalls the less glamorous side of those
days.Although there were great venues
like Highbury and Aneld, Plough
Lane and the Den had very different
atmospheres, even for the players
aggressive, with the fans close to the
pitch and the teams in your face. The
sort of things that went on in the tunnel
couldnt happen now with all the TV
cameras around.Plough Lanewas a
unique environment. It was amazing
that Wimbledonplayed at that level with
the facilities they had. Their success was

When you are a club of the size that

Charlton or Millwall were then, everything
has got to come right, on and off the
pitch. Palace were more of a top-ight
club than any of the rest of us, and even
then Steve Coppell had to get them up
through the playoffs. But it came right for
us too, and even though we were playing
at Selhurst and it was difficult, we spent
more years in the top ight in the late
eighties than Newcastle, Sunderlandand
Middlesbroughput together.
Docherty is the least well-remembered
of the managers. Cascarino, whom he

67

South of the River

more sustained than ours and you have

to admire that. Charlton were sharing
Selhurst with us, although apart from
a couple of Portakabins you wouldnt
have noticed they were there. I know
from managing them later that it was a
time that they dont look back on with
much pleasure.
Lawrie Sanchez, who had scored
Wimbledons winning goal in the FA
Cup nal a year earlier, believes that his
teams basic facilities worked in their
favour. We used to train on Wimbledon
Common, share breakfast in the
transport caf with lorry drivers, and
anyone could walk across our pitches
with the dog.But if going to places like
Highbury was a culture shock for us
after that, then coming to us was more
of a culture shock for the other teams.
The changing rooms and surroundings
werent the best, and the ground was
very intimate and intimidating.

And the derbies were intense, Pardew

said. With so many foreign players
nowadays, a little bit has gone out of
many derbies. You knew so many of the
other players then, and because you
were probably local, your friends and
family would emphasise how important
the games were. My cousin was a
massive Millwall fan, and he couldnt wait
for derbies so that he could laugh at me.
Were supposed to be professional but
these things have an impact.
But many of those behind that success
feel that the depressed and relatively
disorganised state of football at the
time helped the south Londonsides to
compete. We actually nicked boys from
the Arsenal and Tottenham areas, Terry
Burton, the former Wimbledon assistant
manager, said. We had a centre in the
Tottenham area, and it was fair game.
Our selling point was that we would give
youngsters the chance to play.

We used to kick off, roll the ball back

to Dave Beasant and he would launch it
to the edge of the opponents penalty
area and thats what they could expect
for the next 90 minutes. It was ironic
that Plough Lanehad a superb playing
surface, which the ball hardly ever
touched. But eventually we had to leave.
An all-seater stadium with a minimum
capacity was a requirement for the
Premier League.

As the nancial stakes were raised,

though, rival clubs north of the river and
beyond got their acts together, and the
clubs face stiffer competition for local
talent than before. When Harry Redknapp
became manager of West Ham United,
one of his most important early signings
was Jimmy Hampson, a West Ham fan
who had been scouting for Charlton.

As anyone who has to negotiate

south London traffic will tell you, the
number of derbies was not so much
of a convenience as the neutral might
expect. It took us less time to get to
Watfordthan round the South Circular to
Millwall, Sanchez recalled.

This is a Sample Edition - the full version

of this article appears in Issue Four of
The Blizzard.

68

The Blizzard is available on a pay-whatyou-like basis in both download and hard

copy formats from www.theblizzard.co.uk.

74
Theory

Its because they practise their scales

all day long.

Deschamps-Suaudeau

Deschamps-Suaudeau
Didier Deschamps and Jean-Claude Suaudeau debate
the modern vogue for attacking football
By Patrick Dessault

Shortly before Manchester United

and Barcelona played last seasons
Champions League nal, Patrick
Dessault, one of France Footballs
senior reporters, boarded a plane in
Nantes with Jean-Claude Suaudeau,
a player, educator, coach and tutelar
gure whose name is inseparable from
the history of FC Nantes over the past
half-century. Both men were travelling
to Marseilles to meet another alumnus
of the cole nantaise, the Olympique
Marseille manager Didier Deschamps,
48 hours before the current Ligue 1
champions were to play Olympique
Lyonnais in a game that could
prove decisive in the title race. That
Deschamps was willing to sacrice as
much as half a day of his preparations
to entertain a journalist and a retired
manager tells all that needs to be told
about the reverence in which he holds
his former mentor.
For me, Deschamps said when
welcoming his guests in a Cassis
restaurant, this is not work, this is a
rare privilege, as it was for those who
read the transcript of that afternoons
conversation in the magazine over
the next couple of weeks. It ran a full
16 pages, which Dessault and France
Football have graciously allowed The
Blizzard to edit and translate for the
benet of English speakers. This was

not an easy task, as even subjects that

could have been deemed too topical
for publication many months after the
exchange took place carried a resonance
that went way beyond the here and now.
Another difficulty was to remain faithful
to the tone of the conversation, which
is quite unlike any other interview I have
ever come across as it would, since,
strictly speaking, what youre about to
read is not an interview. Dessault wisely
chose to remain in the background
and listen, lling Deschampss and
Suaudeaus glasses with the provenal
ros the elder had chosen from an
enviable wine list. He was my rampart,
the ex-manager said of the stocky young
Basque whom he rst coached when DD
was 12 years old. When he [Suaudeau]
noticed me at the window of the young
players dormitory, Didier remembered,
hed stop and talk. It could go on for a
whole hour. Picture the scene: a coach
discussing the routines hed devised for
the next training session with a teenager
who was 30 years his junior.
Deschamps addressed his former
mentor as vous, while calling him by his
nickname Coco (who stuck to the more
familiar tu throughout), a signicant
nuance that indicated that the pupil,
while deferring to the master, was now
his equal in terms of professional status
and, some would argue, his superior

75

Deschamps-Suaudeau

in terms of achievement. All Suaudeau

has to show for 37 years spent with
the Canaris, from 1960 to 1997, are
four league titles, two as a defensive
midelder (1965, 1966) and two as their
manager (1983, 1995). Deschamps,
by contrast, can boast of a collection
of honours that makes him the most
successful gure (as both player and
manager) in French football history.
European and World champion with Les
Bleus, the rst player to reach 100 caps
for France, the winner of 13 major club
titles most of them as captain with
OM, Juventus and Chelsea, including
two Champions Leagues. As a manager,
he hasnt done too badly either: he took
Monaco to the nal of the Champions
League in 2004, oversaw Juventuss
immediate return to the elite as Serie B
champions after their demotion in the
wake of the calciopoli scandal in 2007,
and led Marseille to a domestic double
in 2010 (not forgetting the 2011 League
Cup). All this, and hes only 43.
However, were you to ask any leading
gure in the French game which of
the two men is the greater manager,
Suaudeau would be an almost unanimous
choice. A genius, many would say,
perhaps the deepest thinker our country
has produced in this eld, with only Albert
Batteux for company. He did not invent
the jeu la nantaise: his predecessor

Jos Arribas was its progenitor in the

1960s, with Coco both an executor and
a student of it rst on the eld, then
as head of the clubs academy; but
Suaudeau rened a style of play into a
system, which he worked on as tirelessly
and as imaginatively as Helenio Herrera
tuned Inter. At home, Suaudeaus 198283 team, of which the rest of Europe saw
close to nothing1, is still considered one
of the nest club sides, if not the nest,
to have ever won the French league
title. It couldnt quite match Valeriy
Lobanovskyis Dynamo Kyiv as far as
results were concerned, but it exuded the
same kind of beauty, poetry balancing
mechanics, and added a certain sense
of reckless joy to this glorious equation.
The 1994-95 incarnation of Nantes,
though less technically accomplished2,
was only one game away from emulating
Ajax, Milan and Arsenal and completing
a domestic league season unbeaten.
Suaudeaus tragedy (the word would not
seem too strong to his admirers) was
that FC Nantes simply couldnt hold on
to its best players, who inevitably left for
richer clubs as soon as a trophy had been
won. Those players, almost to a man,
had been trained in the clubs academy
by Suaudeau himself. Perhaps Cocos
true list of honours is the names of the
players (Jos Tour, Marcel Desailly, Didier
Deschamps, Claude Makll whom
he was the rst to deploy in the role that

A disastrous 3-0 loss in the away leg of their tie with Rapid Vienna saw Nantes exit the 1983-84

European Cup in the rst round.

2

How could players of lesser skill still play la nantaise? Suaudeaus answer to that question appears

paradoxical, but is typical of his approach: We sped it up, we played at 100 miles per hour, he said.
Patterns of open play that hed imagined while walking his two dogs in the training ground would
be rehearsed like set pieces until the players no longer had to think to execute them. He
composed the music, the players played the score, as Dessault, a Nantais himself, likes to say.

76

Patrick Dessault

now bears his name), Maxime Bossis,

Christian Karembeu, and so many others)
he shaped on the concrete pitches of La
Jonellire. He taught them a ravishing
one-touch football that, at its best,
deserved to be ranked with that played at
the Camp Nou today. It is no coincidence
that the rst subject that Suaudeau
wished to broach with Deschamps was
Guardiolas team, as the values which are
now associated with the Catalan club
are precisely those for which his Nantes
became Frances best-loved club when
Suaudeau was its manager.

Only the midelders are able to nd the

right way to play. They are the animators.
They are the inspiration. The more
players of that kind youve got, the more
you can hope to win in the long term.

Philippe Auclair

Deschamps: OK, Coco, I know what

youre thinking: its impossible to ght
against the collective power of the
Catalans, therefore...

Deschamps: Its impossible to play against

Bara in the short term. Theyve played
together for ve, six, seven years: their
game is second nature for them. When
you see the way they move and how
theyve managed to pass on this message
to players who come from all kinds of
backgrounds, thats impressive. Elsewhere,
a coach isnt given that time. The policy is
different. Its every managers dream, but
youve got to be realistic: yes, its lovely to
watch them play, to dream of emulating
them but youve got to have the players
to play that game. And everything stems
from the academy. Coco, at Nantes, when
we joined the pros, wed already spent
four years together in the reserves.
Suaudeau: Bara are the strongest
because their mideld is the strongest.
Deschamps: The mideld battle...
Suaudeau: A game is won in mideld.

Deschamps: I dont agree. What matters

are the two zones of truth. In todays
football, if youve got a great keeper and
a great striker, youre not that far from
victory. Of course, you shouldnt have
muppets in mideld!
Suaudeau: I disagree.

Suaudeau: Dead right. Bara are superstrong in one area: anticipation. Thats the
most difficult thing to pass on to players
when theyre very good. At Barcelona,
even the smallest guy gets his hands dirty
and is to be feared when they try to get
the ball back. Thats where Bara made
the difference when they beat Real Madrid
5-0. Dd, thats the ultimate truth that
was my truth too. Id come to the point
when I conceived my attacking game as
based on getting the ball back... and when
the attacker becomes a defender, eh?

This is a Sample Edition - the full version

of this article appears in Issue Four of
The Blizzard.
The Blizzard is available on a pay-whatyou-like basis in both download and hard
copy formats from www.theblizzard.co.uk.

77

92
Africa

And thats when the thought

occurred that this wasnt a road at
all but an airstrip

Ultra Violence

Ultra Violence
After the horrors of Port Said, the exact role of ultras in
the downfall of Hosny Mubarak remains unclear
By David Lynch

A taxi drove past fast, swerving

erratically, along the main road by the
west bank of the River Nile. Insane
driving is not unique in Cairo, but what I
saw hanging out the backseat window of
this particular taxi was certainly unusual.
On the right-hand side, one young man
stretched out as far his waist, and held
aloft the massive red and white ag of
Egypts most successful club Ahly. The
boastful tagline Club of the Century was
displayed proudly under the clubs crest.
On the other side another young
daredevil, was almost sitting outside the
open window of the speeding vehicle. He
held high above his head the white and
red ag of Ahlys big city foes Zamalek.
Fans normally sharply divided, sharing this
early morning taxi.
Sadly what had inspired this moment of
solidarity were events the night before,
events which have seared themselves into
a national Egyptian consciousness already
reeling from a year of revolutionary
turmoil. The deaths of more than 70 fans
in the Port Said Stadium on Wednesday
1 February ranks as the worst tragedy in
Egyptian football history, and takes its
grim place among the most horric nights
in global football.
The exact facts of what occurred in Port
Said are disputed and a government

126

investigation has been launched. But

some core details are clear.
The Cairo giants Al-Ahly brought a large
travelling support to an away game
against Al-Masry in Port Said. Some home
fans were apparently allowed to enter
the stadium carrying weapons. As the nal
whistle blew on a shock defeat for Ahly,
hundreds of Masry fans spilled onto the
pitch and attacked opposition players and
supporters. Security forces did little or
nothing to prevent this.
Outnumbered, the Ahly fans attempted
to ee, but gates were shut. Fans
reportedly died from stabbings and from
being crushed. Violence is not unknown
at Egyptian soccer games, but not on
this scale.
Some Egyptians regard Port Said as
the horric consequences of lawless
football hooliganism.
But in Cairo, that was most certainly not
how many people view it.
The Ahly Ultras blame the police and
even charge them with co-ordinating
the assault. In the days after the tragedy
they took to the streets and clashed
with police near the Ministry of Interior
in downtown Cairo. The accusation
of police coordination was supported

David Lynch

by the Muslim Brotherhood and

others in the days after the event. The
Brotherhood accused elements in the
police force as still loyal to the former
dictator Hosni Mubarak.
The truth is difficult to ascertain there
were arrests and resignations in the days
after but almost the more important
question is why so many Egyptians
blame forces against the revolution for
what happened in Port Said.
The answer to that is found in the heady
revolutionary days of 2011.

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. Two days previously, an attack
by the security forces on Tahrir had begun
a period of violence that left more than
40 people dead and hundreds injured.
It was late November and what became
known, to some, as the second Egyptian
revolution was at its most intense.
The revolutionary youth who had
made Tahrir their home chanted angry
slogans against the Egyptian military
rulers, the Supreme Council of the
Armed Forces (SCAF). Following the
collapse of the Hosni Mubarak regime
in early 2011, the military had stepped in
to lead what they called the transition
to civilian rule. From the beginning,
many of the revolutionaries were wary
of the militarys true intentions and,
as the months dragged on and no
transition materialised, those suspicions
turned to anger.

But that was not the half of it.

The revolutionary youth who had
participated in most of the ghting
(and dying) that brought an end to
decades of Mubarak rule looked on with
increasing disbelief at the actions of
SCAF thousands of civilians brought
before military tribunals, the extension
of the Emergency Law damned by
Amnesty International as the greatest
erosion of human rights since the
resignation of Hosny Mubarak, the
jailing of opposition activists and the
failure to prosecute members of the
former ruling National Democratic Party
(NDP). The trial of Mubarak and his sons
was slow and disregarded as a sham
by some. In early October there was
also the horric massacre of protesting
Coptic Christians (and Muslim allies) on
the east bank of the Nile.
For those crowded around me in Tahrir
Square, two things had now become
clear the revolution that began in
early 2011 was unnished and the
military, far from being a friend of
the movement, was now a counterrevolutionary force.
As the tight knots of protestors swayed,
the political debates raged in rapid
Arabic around me, the songs of the
January 2011 revolution were being
sung, the blasts of tear gas canisters
and the incoherent rumblings of
rioting could be heard from the nearby
Muhammad Mahmoud Street. People
crushed against one another as hastily
created human corridors emerged to
allow those injured on the front line to
be rushed to eld hospitals.
Against this backdrop of chaos and the
sonic onslaught of revolution, one of my

127

Ultra Violence

companions and I conducted a halting

conversation about local football.
A fan of one of Cairos big two
clubs, he was hopeful that a couple of
disappointing early season results for
Zamalek did not necessarily mean their
cross city nemesis Ahly would run
away with the league. Despite the lack of
space, I struggled to raise my arm above
my waist. I pointed in the direction of the
street battles raging a few hundred metres
away in Muhammad Mahmoud Street.
You know that many Ahly Ultras are
supposed to have been very involved
in the revolution in January? I said,
speaking louder so he could hear me
over the incessant chorus of deance
around us. They have been on the
streets during this week as well. Theyre
probably ghting up there now.
He swung his head around to face me.
Not only them, he snapped back.
The Zamalek Ultras the Ultra White
Knights have been in Tahrir as well.
Its not only Ahly fans here ghting for
the revolution.
It was clear that in the extraordinary
year of the Arab Spring the sharp rivalry
between both sets of fans extended
beyond the pitch and terraces and into
the debate over who had contributed
most to the revolutionary vanguard.
Politics and sport often mix, but in the
revolutionary Egypt of 2011 the delicate
demarcation between the two worlds
dissolved completely. Ultra fan groups
released political statements, ministers

128

commented on the actions of the

politicised football supporters, longstanding managers and officials were
slammed as cronies of the former regime
and forced out, some professional
footballers became revolutionaries and
others sat the revolution out.
Egyptians have said to me that in 2011
one national obsession, football, had
been replaced by a new one, politics and
the revolution.
Yes, the revolution meant that people
did not just focus on football, said Esso,
a Cairene working in advertising and a
lifelong Ahly fan.
But this was also because the league
was stopped for some time because of
the trouble on the streets.
Before the revolution the most
important thing for Egyptians was
football, and it will return to being the
most important thing again.
There was some truth to this. In the heady
days after the January revolution, even
the failure of the Egyptian national team
to qualify for the African Cup of Nations
was not as crushing to the national self
esteem as it would normally have been.

This is a Sample Edition - the full version

of this article appears in Issue Four of
The Blizzard.
The Blizzard is available on a pay-whatyou-like basis in both download and hard
copy formats from www.theblizzard.co.uk.

Blizzard Subscriptions
Subscribe to the print version of The Blizzard, be the
rst to receive new issues, get exclusive Blizzard offers
and access digital versions of all back-issues FREE

Subscription Options

Information for Existing

Subscribers

Set Price for Four Issues

Get a four-issue subscription to The
Blizzard for you or as a gift for a at
fee including postage and packing (P&P):
UK:
Europe:
Non-Euorpe:

35
45
55

Recurring Pay-What-You-Like
Set up a quartely recurring payment
for each edition of The Blizzard. The
recommended retail price (RRP) is 12,
but pay what you like, subject to a
minimum fee of 6 plus P&P
See www.theblizzard.co.uk for more

Digital Subscriptions
If the cost of postage is prohibitive, or
you just want an excuse to use your
new iPad or Kindle, you can set up a
subscription to digital versions of The
Blizzard for just 3 per issue.
See www.theblizzard.co.uk for more

Free Digital Downloads

for Blizzard Subscribers
Whether you have taken advantage of
our set price or pay-what-you-like offer,
for the duration of your subscription
to The Blizzard you are entitled to
download every issue FREE.
See www.theblizzard.co.uk for more
We very much value the commitment of
our print subscribers and have a policy
to make available new issues, special
offers and other limited access events
and benets to print subscribers rst.

About The Blizzard

Distribution & Back Issues
Contact Information
About The Blizzard

Buy The Blizzard

Contact The Blizzard

We want as many readers as possible for

The Blizzard. We therefore operate as far
as we are able on a pay-what-you-like
basis for digital and print versions.

All advertising, sales, press and business

communication should be addressed to
the Central Publishing Office:

Digital Version
(Current & Back Issues)
All issues of The Blizzard are available to
download for Kindle, Android, iOS and PC/
Mac at: www.theblizzard.co.uk.
RRP: 3
Pay-what-you-like minimum: 0.01

Printed Version
(Current & Back Issues)

The Blizzard
Ashmore Villa,
1, Ashmore Terrace,
Stockton Road,
Sunderland,
SR27DE
Email:
Telephone:
Website:
Facebook:
Twitter:

info@theblizzard.co.uk
+44 (0) 191 543 8785
www.theblizzard.co.uk
www.facebook.com/blzzrd
@blzzrd

About The Blizzard

Purchase a physical copy of The Blizzard
in all its luxurious, tactile, sensual glory
at: www.theblizzard.co.uk. If you havent
felt our rough textured cover-varnish and
smelled the inner genius, you havent
properly experienced its awesome true
form. Read it, or leave it on your coffee
table to wow visitors.
RRP: 12 (+P&P)
Pay-what-you-like min: 6 (+P&P)

Editor Jonathan Wilson

Publisher The Blizzard Media Ltd
www.theblizzard.co.uk
Design Azure
www.azure-design.com

Copyright
All content is Copyright 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 Walkers original sketches of Dog.

www.theblizzard.co.uk

ISBM 978 - 1 - 908940 - 04 -9

RRP 12.00

781908 940049