The first issue of The Squall, out in early May, has now been commissioned, so please don’t send any more pitches about right-backs! For more about the birth of The Squall, click here.
The next three Squalls – July, August, October – although I don’t yet know in which order, will be on:
Sliding doors (moments when football/history could have slipped in a different direction if only X hadn’t bumped into Y, a goal hadn’t been disallowed for a tight offside, Z hadn’t slipped when clean through….)
Short-lived tournaments (don’t just name the tournament: tell me what the story is – was the tournament itself a bizarre idea (I would be fascinated if anybody could do a proper piece on football at the Ganefo Games in 1963 – http://www.rsssf.com/tablesg/ganefo.html), did it feature a spectacular performance or game, was it notable for the first rabona/red card/ artificial pitch, whatever…)
Battles (to be interpreted as loosely you like – individual clashes in games or over careers, rivalries between clubs or managers, matches that spilled into violence, players taking on opponents human, governmental, environmental, psychological…)
And you can also pitch for The Blizzard – the deadline for the September issue will be July 10. And if your pitch does not make it into an issue of The Squall, fear not, as it may be we can use some further down the line in The Blizzard.
If you could help spread the word about The Squall, that would be hugely helpful. Obviously the more traction we get, the more people start paying, the more viable this is going forward and the more freelancers we can pay to write for it.
There are two moments when that will be particularly useful. Firstly, when we’re ready to start taking pre-orders from the public, which should be soon. And secondly, when the first issue of The Squall is ready at the beginning of May.
We have now set The Squall up as a pay-what-you-can product. We hope that Blizzard-lovers and plenty of others will donate to the cause and buy each issue to make it something that we can sustain at least until the worst of the crisis has passed, and longer if possible.
We have organised a dedicated bank account for The Squall and we have also set-up a PayPal account. Any money paid into either of these accounts will be used for the sole purpose of producing future issues (we will be publishing account statements to show that is the case).
You can transfer money to The Squall account (the account name is Squall Freelance, the sort code is 40-05-17 and the account number is 71515942) or by clicking on the button to donate via PayPal. We get charged fewer fees with a direct bank transfer. A thousand thank yous from all the freelancers out there!
