The Blizzard

This week on Greatest Games, Michael Walker joins Jonathan Wilson and Marcus Speller to remember Northern Ireland’s return to Windsor Park after three and a half years of international football exile.

The Northern Ireland national team had been playing their “home” games up and down England since their last Windsor Park international in October 1971 against the Soviet Union. This game against Yugoslavia brought Northern Ireland out of football isolation.

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About the panel:

Jonathan Wilson founded The Blizzard in 2011 and is editor of the magazine. He’s contributed to a number of publications including the Guardian and Sports Illustrated as well as having authored  Behind the Curtain, Inverting the Pyramid, The Outsider, Angels with Dirty Faces and most recently The Names Heard Long Ago, among others.

Marcus Speller is a host of the Football Ramble podcast as well as Answerable Questions with Questionable Answers. Marcus also regularly hosts our live Q&A events across the country alongside Jonathan.

Michael Walker is a football reporter for The Athletic, the Irish Times and the I and an author of Up There: North East Football Boom and Bust and also Green Shoots: Irish Football Histories.

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On this week’s Greatest Games Jonathan Wilson and Marcus Speller are joined by Dominic Sandbrook to discuss the 1954 exhibition match between English champions Wolverhampton Wanderers and Hungarian champions Budapest Honvéd.

Under the Molineux floodlights and broadcast on the BBC, excitement swept across Wolverhampton and the entire nation for this one. 

Honvéd starred many of the Mighty Magyars who finished as runners-up in the 1954 World Cup and had sent shockwaves through English football after becoming the first team from outside the British Isles to defeat England at Wembley.

After the win, the English press coined Wolves the ‘champions of the world’, spurring a desire for more continental club football and the formation of regular contests under the guise of the European Cup.

Jonathan Wilson founded The Blizzard in 2011 and is editor of the magazine. He’s contributed to a number of publications including the Guardian and Sports Illustrated as well as having authored Behind the Curtain, Inverting the Pyramid, The Outsider, Angels with Dirty Faces and most recently The Names Heard Long Ago, among others.

Marcus Speller is a host of the Football Ramble podcast as well as Answerable Questions with Questionable Answers. Marcus also regularly hosts our live Q&A events across the country alongside Jonathan.

Dominic Sandbrook is a historian, author, columnist and co-presenter of The Rest Is History podcast. Dominic’s most recent book Who Dares Wins, about Britain in the 1980s, is available from all the expected retailers now.

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We’re off to a cup final, everyone! Faye Carruthers joins Jonathan Wilson and Marcus Speller to discuss the 1988 Littlewoods Challenge Cup Final between Luton Town and Arsenal.

Defending champions Arsenal were considered heavy favourites, but Ray Harford’s Luton Town had been performing well in the First Division and were raring for this cup final.

Gus Caesar errors and Andy Dibble heroics make the difference in this frantic cup final in front of 95,000 at Wembley which features four goals in the game’s last 20 minutes.

About the panel:

Jonathan Wilson founded The Blizzard in 2011 and is editor of the magazine. He’s contributed to a number of publications including the Guardian and Sports Illustrated as well as having authored  Behind the Curtain, Inverting the Pyramid, The Outsider, Angels with Dirty Faces and most recently The Names Heard Long Ago, among others.

Marcus Speller is a host of the Football Ramble podcast as well as Answerable Questions with Questionable Answers. Marcus also regularly hosts our live Q&A events across the country alongside Jonathan.

Faye Carruthers is a presenter and reporter for Sky Sports, talkSPORT, IMG and many more. 

Listen to every Greatest Games podcast ever, here.
Subscribe to our quarterly magazine: https://www.theblizzard.co.uk/
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David Jones joins Jonathan Wilson and Marcus Speller to remember the second 1997 FA Cup semi-final at Old Trafford.

About the panel:

Jonathan Wilson founded The Blizzard in 2011 and is editor of the magazine. He’s contributed to a number of publications including the Guardian and Sports Illustrated as well as having authored  Behind the Curtain, Inverting the Pyramid, The Outsider, Angels with Dirty Faces and most recently The Names Heard Long Ago, among others. 

Marcus Speller is a host of the Football Ramble podcast as well as Answerable Questions with Questionable Answers. Marcus also regularly hosts our live Q&A events across the country alongside Jonathan.

David Jones presents Super Sunday and Monday Night Football on Sky Sports.

Listen to every Greatest Games podcast ever, here.
Subscribe to our quarterly magazine: https://www.theblizzard.co.uk/
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It’s a World Cup final edition of Greatest Games! Herbie Sykes joins Jonathan Wilson and Marcus Speller to discuss Italy’s first World Cup triumph on home soil in 1934.

Mussolini’s Italy greeted the world for the second Fifa World Cup competition, the first to feature teams from three continents. In a tournament designed to highlight Italian superiority and values, the only team left standing in their way of lifting the Jules Rimet Trophy – then called “Victory” – was Czechoslovakia.

Italy would emerge victorious, albeit in a victory shrouded by accusations of bribery, corruption and meddling, and the fascist anthem Giovinezza would play out in celebration around the Stadio Nazionale in Rome.

If you can ever spare the time to leave a review wherever you get your podcasts from, it could really help. Thanks for your support!

About the panel:

Jonathan Wilson founded The Blizzard in 2011 and is editor of the magazine. He’s contributed to a number of publications including the Guardian and Sports Illustrated as well as having authored  Behind the Curtain, Inverting the Pyramid, The Outsider, Angels with Dirty Faces and most recently The Names Heard Long Ago, among others.

Marcus Speller is a host of the Football Ramble podcast as well as Answerable Questions with Questionable Answers. Marcus also regularly hosts our live Q&A events across the country alongside Jonathan.

Herbie Sykes is a Turin-based journalist who specialises in the history of road bicycle racing and an author of a number of books including the award-winning The Race Against The Stasi and recently Juve: 100 Years of an Italian Footballing Dynasty.

Listen to every Greatest Games podcast ever, here.
Subscribe to our quarterly magazine: https://www.theblizzard.co.uk/
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Back to Wembley for this week’s Greatest Games as  Maciej Iwański joins Jonathan Wilson and Marcus Speller to discuss a famous draw between England and Poland in October 1973. 

After suffering defeat in Chorzow in June, Alf Ramsey’s side needed to win in order to avoid missing the World Cup finals for the first time since their first entry in 1950. However, the heroics of goalkeeper Jan Tomaszewski helped Poland secure their spot at the World Cup at England’s expense and managed to make a fool of Brian Clough in the process.

If you can ever spare the time to leave a review wherever you get your podcasts from, it could really help. Thanks for your support!

Jonathan Wilson founded The Blizzard in 2011 and is editor of the magazine. He’s contributed to a number of publications including the Guardian and Sports Illustrated as well as having authored  Behind the Curtain, Inverting the Pyramid, The Outsider, Angels with Dirty Faces and most recently The Names Heard Long Ago, among others.

Marcus Speller is a host of the Football Ramble podcast as well as Answerable Questions with Questionable Answers. Marcus also regularly hosts our live Q&A events across the country alongside Jonathan.

Maciej Iwański is a presenter on TVP Sport in Poland and a member of the Ballon d’Or jury.

Subscribe to our quarterly magazine: https://www.theblizzard.co.uk/

Listen to every Greatest Games podcast ever, here. 

Twitter: http://twitter.com/blzzrd

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/blzzrd

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theblizzard__/

Rory Smith joins Jonathan Wilson and Marcus Speller on this week’s Greatest Games to reflect on one of football’s most highly-anticipated fixtures to have never even happened – the postponed 2018 Copa Libertadores final second-leg between River Plate and Boca Juniors.

A rousing 2-2 draw at La Bombonera had perfectly set-up a winner-takes-all Copa Libertadores superclásico final – the like of which never to have been witnessed before in the 58-year history of the competition. 

However, it was an occasion that proved too seismic to even taken place – where it was originally intended to have been hosted, at least.

The local and global significance of the superclásico, Conmebol tribulations, Jacaranda trees and more.

About the panel:

Jonathan Wilson founded The Blizzard in 2011 and is editor of the magazine. He’s contributed to a number of publications including the Guardian and Sports Illustrated as well as having authored  Behind the Curtain, Inverting the Pyramid, The Outsider, Angels with Dirty Faces and most recently The Names Heard Long Ago, among others. 

Marcus Speller is a host of the Football Ramble podcast as well as Answerable Questions with Questionable Answers. Marcus also regularly hosts our live Q&A events across the country alongside Jonathan.

Rory Smith is the chief soccer correspondent for the New York Times, a regular on BBC Radio Five Live and author of Mister: The Men Who Gave The World The Game.

Subscribe to our quarterly magazine: https://www.theblizzard.co.uk/

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Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theblizzard__/

This week on Greatest Games, Jonathan Wilson and Marcus Speller discuss a 1954 World Cup semi-final with Martin Da Cruz – Hungary 4 Uruguay 2. 

Going into the match in Lausanne, Switzerland, Hungary’s ‘Mighty Magyars’ hadn’t lost a full international since 1950 – winning Olympic gold and thrashing England a couple of times in that time. But of course, Uruguay were yet to lost a World Cup fixture themselves, winning the inaugural competition in 1930 and then in 1950. 

Two international football heavyweights meet in a defining fixture at a pivotal time in their footballing histories.

Jonathan Wilson founded The Blizzard in 2011 and is editor of the magazine. He’s contributed to a number of publications including the Guardian and Sports Illustrated as well as having authored  Behind the Curtain, Inverting the Pyramid, The Outsider, Angels with Dirty Faces and most recently The Names Heard Long Ago, among others. 

Marcus Speller is a host of the Football Ramble podcast as well as Answerable Questions with Questionable Answers. Marcus also regularly hosts our live Q&A events across the country alongside Jonathan.

Martin da Cruz is an Australia-based PhD student, researcher and writer specialising in Uruguayan football history, contributor to The Blizzard and is currently working on his first book on the early years of the Uruguayan game.

Order our latest quarterly –  including how the COVID-19 pandemic changed football, a look at a selection of infamous footballing individuals and an investigation of the Afghanistan women’s national team and their fight for justice – Issue 40.

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Leon Mann is this week’s guest on Greatest Games, joining Jonathan Wilson and Marcus Speller to remember the 1991 FA Cup semi-final North London Derby between Terry Venables’ Tottenham and George Graham’s Arsenal.

Rather than traipsing the sides up to the midlands, the tie became the first-ever FA Cup semi-final to be hosted at Wembley. This meant a first Wembley trip for Leon and a grand setting to further encourage Mr Paul Gascoigne for the occasion. What followed was a clash of styles between two cherished managers and one of the great semi-final performances. 

Jonathan Wilson founded The Blizzard in 2011 and is editor of the magazine. He’s contributed to a number of publications including the Guardian and Sports Illustrated as well as having authored  Behind the Curtain, Inverting the Pyramid, The Outsider, Angels with Dirty Faces and most recently The Names Heard Long Ago, among others. 

Marcus Speller is a host of the Football Ramble podcast as well as Answerable Questions with Questionable Answers. Marcus also regularly hosts our live Q&A events across the country alongside Jonathan.

Leon Mann is an interviewer, consultant, filmmaker and founder of BCOMS and the Football Black List.

Subscribe to our quarterly magazine: https://www.theblizzard.co.uk/ 

Twitter: http://twitter.com/blzzrd 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/blzzrd 

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This week on Greatest Games, Brian Homewood joins Jonathan Wilson and Marcus Speller to discuss the 1981 Uefa Cup Winners’ Cup quarter-final first-leg between West Ham United and Dinamo Tbilisi.

So to the Boleyn Ground for this one, where the ardent West Ham crowd – then used to cruising second division and on the verge of promotion – warmly welcomed the Soviet Cup winners from Georgia. The reception was shortly followed by disbelief as the Georgians picked apart the FA Cup holders on a blustery March night in East London.

Jonathan Wilson founded The Blizzard in 2011 and is editor of the magazine. He’s contributed to a number of publications including the Guardian and Sports Illustrated as well as having authored  Behind the Curtain, Inverting the Pyramid, The Outsider, Angels with Dirty Faces and most recently The Names Heard Long Ago, among others. 

Marcus Speller is a host of the Football Ramble podcast as well as Answerable Questions with Questionable Answers. Marcus also regularly hosts our live Q&A events across the country alongside Jonathan.

Brian Homewood is a freelance journalist based in Portugal, contributor of Reuters, World Soccer, ESPN and When Saturday Comes among others.

Subscribe to our quarterly magazine: https://www.theblizzard.co.uk/ 

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