London Sports Writing Festival: Football journalism, with a brain

Football is a simple game. In fact, it's one of the few games where everywhere you go in the world, it's played with the same few rules and garners almost the same level of popularity. But that doesn't mean it can't be complex, and analysed if that's what you want. 

Last night's The Blizzard panel discussion at the excellent London Sports Writing Festival, took place at the home of cricket, Lords. Chaired by the Football Ramble's always funny everyman host Marcus Speller, it featured France Football magazine's Philippe Auclair, freelancer Miguel Delaney and Blizzard founder Jonathan Wilson. The Blizzard is a magazine/book which features long-form writing on football history and the modern game. Its deliciously printed pages are a hive of long-forgotten detail and emotional responses to football.

The esteemed panel essentially spent an hour answering a variety of rather disparate questions from Speller and the audience whilst consuming red wine. Subjects ranged from their favourite Roy Keane anecdote (Auclair's recollection of the fierce Irishman backstage at the festival switching over from El Clasico raised a laugh) to pontifications on the imminent future of the Africa Cup of Nations amid the ebola crisis. Wilson, who writes for the Guardian, appears on its ever-glorious Football Weekly podcast, and has authored some of the best football books in recent years, was in fine form.

Watching him discuss the evolution of tactics - the subject with which he is most associated - and how different managers adapt and introduce their ethos is impressive. Wilson moulds his off-the-cuff knowledge of a mind-blowing array of facts with a genuine love of the beautiful game. Listening to him, alongside the likes of Barney Ronay, Amy Lawrence, Barry Glendenning and host of others on the podcast, there's a benchmark for football journalism which is, and should be, widely recognised. Special mention should also be given to the BBC's Tim Vickery, one of Auntie Beeb's biggest talents whose status as the UK's foremost South American sports journalist was laid bare during the World Cup this summer. 

Clearly many see beard-scratching pontification over tactics or unknown lower league European players as the domain of the football hipster - those keen to look cool by knowing about different things than the average bloke down the pub. 

But for me, football is as much about the stories behind the game - the people, the politics, the decisions and the history - as what happens on the pitch. So much football journalism is a simply '[INSERT NAME] player said [INSERT BANAL COMMENT] about [INSERT FORTHCOMING WEEKEND FIXTURE]'. 

As a journalist, I understand how pages are filled in this way but I think it's condescending to increasingly well informed football fans to assume they just want to read platitudinous comments, match previews and reports. As with the banal, ex-player pundits who stalk our TV football coverage, there's no reason to assume we can't handle intelligent, genuine analysis. This week I blindly enjoyed a lively 0-0 away draw for Sheffield Wednesday at Brentford which gave me the opportunity to sing, shout and jump up and down, the following night I marvelled at Real Madrid's tactics in putting Liverpool to the sword. 

Wilson, Auclair, Delaney and Speller created an hour-long reminder that journalism is about informing people and football, at its heart, is about taking what you want from a simple game. 

London Sports Writing Festival considers how El Clásico gained its bite

A heated panel discussion on the highest profile match in world football - Barcelona v Real Madrid - was a highlight of the London Sports Writing Festival at Lords this week. The four-day event featured a plethora of interesting speakers from British rower Katherine Grainger to BBC Sports website supremo Ben Dirs. As a fan of excellent sports writing, collecting the great and good in one event at the home of cricket was mouthwatering. 

Guardian Spanish football correspondent Sid Lowe and Sky Sports' man in Spain, Graham Hunter, squared up on each side of the debate over El Classico, chaired by The Times writer Matt Dickinson. A packed audience listened attentively as the two took apart the rivalry in what has realistically become a two-team league.

Hunter claimed Johan Cruyff shaped the modern rivalry. He argued the Dutchman, who demolished Real in a 5-0 for the Catalans in February 1974, paved the way for future matches to be considered the peak of Spanish football. He believes that Cryuff's desire as both player and coach to overcome Barca's greatest rivals added spice to their encounters.

Lowe, who has just published Fear and Loathing in La Liga, an excellent look at the fixture, argued that Real legend Alfredo Di Stefano played a bigger part in shaping the modern dynamic. While he agreed that the 5-0 game was a crucial point, Lowe articulately outlined the circumstances around Di Stefano's complex transfer, in which both teams laid claim to the talented Argentine and even briefly countenanced sharing him in alternate seasons.

While Real Madrid's nine European Cup and Champions League victories have long been held as the most significant element in arguing which is the more successful team, it is the club's relationship with Spanish dictator Franco which gets more air time even than to the merits of Barca and Spain's Tiki-taka re-invention of the game. The perception of Real Madrid as Franco's club is one which Lowe points out the club have done little to dispel, and the image of Los Blancos as the monied class is only further exemplified by the Galactico era and Gareth Bale's humungous transfer fee.

An intellectual debate is only undermined by several self-serving questions from the audience. Hunter's repeated attempts to second guess why the audience have attended rather than simply debate the subject is a little tiresome. But largely, this was an interesting and informed discussion on the merits of each club and their relationship.

In reality, both teams need each other and while Barca are streaking away at the top of the league this season, both are incredibly successful. A key question asked is whether the seeming lack of competition in the league may have damaged their performance in Europe - after being hammered by Germans in last season's Champions League semi-finals. 

Moreover, the number of Classicos, perpetuated by showpiece friendlies and domestic cup success, may also have diminished its standing. But El Classico looks set to remain the most intense fixture in world football for some time as the two giants fight over the world's pre-eminent players.