Move over, Brian Lara: this month, FourFourTwo is celebrating its own incredible innings. Thanks, El Tel!
When England boss Terry Venables sat down for an interview with a new magazine called FourFourTwo back in 1994, he probably didn’t realise how significant his chat would be.
Branded as ‘the quite remarkable football magazine’, QI style before QI was a thing, issue one of FFT launched with that Venables exclusive – our first cover also contained gems like ‘Barry Fry: cheeky fat bastard’ and Jimmy Hill taking a long throw in a Chelsea away kit. Because why not? El Tel was a trendsetter – this month FFT celebrates its 350th issue, having spoken to all of football’s greatest names over the ensuing 29 years.
Lionel Messi became guest editor in 2017, three years after Brazilian great Ronaldo did likewise to celebrate our 20th birthday – even bringing his own dinner jacket to the photoshoot, then dressing up in a party hat and ringing up Ronaldinho to get him to do a big interview in the same issue. In 2010, we met up with Pele as he turned 70.
“I was relaxed about meeting him until two minutes before he arrived, when I realised I didn’t know how to address him – Pele? Mr Pele? Edson?” says Anth Moore, FourFourTwo’s long-serving art director. “We spent two hours with him and he was the nicest man in football – the only player I have ever met that my dad was truly impressed by. In photos I have of that day, there’s a to-do list I’d written on my hand. One said, ‘Meet Pele’ – as if I was going to forget to meet him!”
Our art supremo was also the brains behind our 2015 cover of Zinedine Zidane, which won cover of the year at an industry-wide magazine awards ceremony. There have been
