EDITOR’S LETTER

Three hundred magazines is a hell of a lot to read, never mind create, but I know many of you have loyally been with us since issue one in 1994, with its Terry Venables cover, colour supplement-style layout and fixtures listings. As the new editor in 2019, who remembers its launch 25 years ago, I can say that from day one Fourfourtwo has been a class act, delivering excellent features and quality football writing. We couldn’t have gone anywhere without the support of our readers, so thank you.

The staff and writers all live, love, breathe, eat and drink football (apart from Chris, our staff writer, who also lives off cheese and white bread).

It clearly works, as he managed to get hold of Pele to talk us through some of the archive images we found of the Brazilian great.

Thanks to everyone who has ever worked on the magazine editorial, in particular Karen Buchanan who came up with the idea for the magazine, and Paul Simpson who made it happen as launch editor.

I want to thank all the advertisers, distributors, licensing staff, retailers, subs and production staff who’ve made Fourfourtwo the leading football magazine in the world.

Now published in 11 countries around the planet, Fourfourtwo is a must-read for football fans everywhere, whether you’re with us in print, online, on social media, via our newsletter or listening to our brand new podcast, available on itunes and Spotify.

The world of football has changed a lot over the last 25 years, and we’ve used this anniversary issue to not only hail the best 101 players of that time, but also talk to two very different fans.

Pontus Jansson of Leeds United and Sweden played in the World Cup quarter-final against England last year, but considers himself first and foremost a Malmo fan. We spoke to him about what it’s like to make that journey from teenage pitch invader to full international.

Manchester United vlogger Mark Goldbridge is typical of a generation of fans who have created and defined their own media platforms and form of support. Whether you laugh with him or at him, he’s part of a modern phenomenon and doing well. In the approximate words of Alan Partridge, who he often sounds like, eat his goal!

Elsewhere in this issue, we’ve got an excellent piece on the cult of the Boca Juniors shirt by football shirt expert Neal Heard, and we are delighted to publish one of the great British football writers, Hunter Davies, on Gazza in our 101 Greatest Players Of Our Lifetime feature. Both are joining us as regular contributors.

We’ve really enjoyed putting this issue together and hope you have as much fun reading it. If you’re furious your favourite player didn’t make our list, let us know for our letters page.

Thanks again for being the reason Fourfourtwo exists.