The Blizzard: The Best of the First Five Years

From the publisher:

Released in December 2019, The Best of the First Five Years is a selection of 23 of our favourite contributions from 2011-2015. There’s Uli Hesse on St Pauli’s ethos, David Tryhorn sits down with Socrates and Igor Rabiner travels with Avram Grant through Siberia. Plus lots, lots more.

Full contents:

• The Conversion of St Pauli? - Uli Hesse
  Back in the Bundesliga, Europe’s most noted counter-cultural club is having to balance its ethos with the desire for a secure financial future
• The Man who Made Calcio - James Horncastle
  How Gianni Brera shaped the language and style of Italian football
• The Collaborator - Philippe Auclair
  The treacherous life and traitor’s death of Alexandre Villaplane, France’s first World Cup captain
• The Brain in Spain - Sid Lowe
  Juanma Lillo, mentor to Pep Guardiola, explains his thinking on clubs, coaching and why society is sick
• The Bomb and the Bowler Hat - Barney Ronay
  How modern football was shaped in an internment camp in Berlin
• Corrida of Uncertainty - David Winner
  How the cruelty of tiki-taka resembles bull-fighting
• The Kindling of a Flame - David Tryhorn
  The former Brazil captain Socrates talks about why footballers have a political responsibility
• My Name is Ally MacLeod and I am a Winner - Dominic Sandbrook
  How Scotland’s humiliation at the 1978 World Cup knocked nationalism off course
• Paying the Penalty - Karel Haring
  The Czechoslovakia great Antonín Panenka discusses how his famous dinked penalty came about and the impact it’s had
• The Rise of the Technocrats - Tim Vickery
  How attitudes to the dictatorship shape Brazil’s change of approach in the seventies
• Everything is Politics - Jonathan Wilson
  The great Bosnian coach Ivica Osim reflects on the war, Japan and Alan Mullery’s lack of fair play.
• Notes on Street Football - Aleksandar Hemon
  What kickabouts reveal about the tortured artists of neoromantic myth
• Football on TV - Scott Murray
  Key moments in the history of televising the game
• The Death of Mystery - Rory Smith
  Is the modern thirst for knowledge taking the fun out of football?
• Literally on Fire - Jonathan Liew
  How the game’s relationship with smoking has changed over the generations
• Booze Boys - Dion Fanning
  Tracing the history of Irish football’s sizzled relationship with alcohol
• Closure - Igor Rabiner
  Travelling through Siberia with Avram Grant to find the graves of his grandparents
• The Van Basten of Hartlepool - Harry Pearson
  Adam Boyd and the glory of a talent that flickers without ever catching light
• Tour of Duty - Davidde Corran
  With the Vietnam War at its height, Australia sent a team to play in a tournament in Saigon
• Sleeping Giant - Robin Bairner
  In 1982, Jean-Pierre Adams was given anaesthetic before knee surgery. He hasn’t woken up
• The Turf War - Ann Tornkvist
  How the murder of the promising footballer Eddie Moussa sheds light on Sweden’s gang culture
• Fallen Eagle - Ewan MacKenna
  The death of the former Nigeria striker Rashidi Yekini remains shrouded in mystery
• The Peter Principle - Rupert Fryer
  Promotion to a level of incompetence is a common idea in business, but is it true in football?

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