This month saw the first release of brand new football magazine Twentyfour7football. The magazine available is in shops at £3.99 and online for £2.99. The mag, with its slick, glossy production is aimed giving the established titles of FourFourTwo and World Soccer a run for their money, and at 148 pages it packs a lot into its first edition.
A stellar writing cast has been assembled such as professional journos Oliver Kay and Oliver Holt, Sky Sports News presenters Simon Thomas and Hayley McQueen, ex-pros like Matt Le Tissier, Peter Beagrie and Mark Bright and other football luminaries like Barry Fry and David Gold.
The magazine kicks off with ‘The Warm Up’, a photgraphic journey around recent footballing events and is quickly followed by divisional summaries from the Premier League down to the Blue Square Premier. Interspersed are interviews with players from differing levels of football’s hierarchy from Micah Richards to Chris Whelpdale. The league round-ups are short and to the point, while the interviews give us more of what we’re used to with the bland, stock responses you would expect to see in any Sky Sports News interview or club programme. The interviewers have missed a trick here and could certainly have pressed for something more interesting from their subjects.
The front cover, adorned by none other than Sir Alex Ferguson points us to the main feature as Hayley McQueen talks with the record-breaking Scotsman. To some degree she gets a relaxed and informative look at Fergie’s managerial style and development, although again, it would have been nice to see an in-depth article give us more of the great man’s heritage and pearls of wisdom.
To be applauded are the Women’s football section with pieces from Kelly Smith and Hope Powell and the promise to devote five pages per issue to the Women’s game. Also of interest was the MLS section, focussing on the Beckham era and what comes next.
The Olivers, Kay and Holt lend their professional touch in their pieces and fans of Scottish and European football are catered for in satisfactory fashion for a first issue.
Reading the thoughts of Barry Fry, Barry Silkman and David Gold give us a perspective of off-field issues while we are also given time with Kevin Keegan, Ian Wright and celebrity fan Olly Murs.
Nice features such as ‘Around the Grounds’ and ‘Hall of Fame’ help bring Issue 1 to a close alongside an in-depth look at football finances and the Premier League gravy train.
Twentyfour7football has had a good start, but can improve. With the pedigree of its contributors, we should expect access to all levels of the games and if they have the will to be different, we hope to see more insight, more news and more of what we have never had before. With some careful trimming here and there and some brave development of other sections, Issue 2 could be a corker.
You can access the Twentyfour7 football website at:
http://twentyfour7football.com
You can buy the online edition of twentyfour7 football at:
http://twentyfour7football.com/digital
MARK GODFREY
