The Blizzard is a quarterly football magazine edited by Jonathan Wilson, published in both download and hard copy formats by Blizzard Media. The magazine was originally sold on a pay-what-you-like basis.[1]
The Blizzard took its name from an eclectic Victorian Sunderland-based newspaper set up by Sidney Duncan, which ran for 12 issues and was established in 1893.[2] Wilson, who also comes from Sunderland, wanted to replicate the eclectic nature of this publication. The Editor's Note,[3] which began Issue Zero, set out the magazine's ethos as an alternative to that which was currently available in football media. Jonathan Wilson wrote:
- "I’d been frustrated for some time by the constraints of the mainstream media and, in various press rooms and bars across the world, I’d come to realise I wasn’t 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, I wondered, to accommodate articles of several thousand words? Could we do something that was neither magazine nor book, but somewhere in between? As I floated thoughts and theories to anyone who would listen, I became aware there were other writers so keen to break the shackles of Search Engine Optimisation and the culture of quotes-for-quotes'-sake that they were prepared to write for a share of potential profit, that the joy of writing what they wanted and felt was important outweighed the desire to be paid."
The Blizzard accommodates longer articles than a typical football magazine, with pieces up to 8000 words long.[2] Topics are often more obscure and esoteric than other magazines, aiming to either cover little-explored components of football culture, or to take new perspectives on previously well-explored issues.[3][4] While the initial issue was published virtually, a limited print run was released. All subsequent issues have appeared both as pdfs, and in-print.
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