Four Four Two (Four Four Two)

Name: polydeuces

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Product:	Four Four Two
Date:	06/08/08 (8 review reads)
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The issue for a football magazine is knowing who is likely to buy and read the magazine or as business studies people would say the 'addressable market'. If you ask people are they football fans a majority of the population might say yes. If this mass of people are then asked 'Do you ever buy a football related product or go to a game?' then many would probably reply in the negative. Of those remaining many are only interested in football in the context of their close affiliation or support for one club. The numbers who are fans of the sport but without allegiance are probably a small proportion of the numbers who expressed an interest in the game.

How then can a magazine without a bias towards a club create a niche for itself. The majority of football coverage falls into 2 categories - the personality led sensationalism of the tabloid press and the intellectualism and pseudo-social focus of the broadsheets. I know this is perhaps a sweeping generalisation but the majority of written football coverage in my view is like this.
FourFourTwo has been on the newsagents shelves for a couple of years now and has a coverage of the sport which tries to mix in-depth analysis of the game and its players balanced with some neat retrospective looks at the past game and a reasonable degree of humour.

The magazine does get over the problem of allegiance by ensuring its main feature articles concern the players in the top clubs. The players of Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United get a large amount of coverage. Other clubs in the Premiership are also featured and there is usually at least one article from the lower divisions.
The coverage does avoid sensationalism and also avoids being patronising. Football is a simple game played for the most part by relatively simple people best left having their boots doing the talking for them.

FourFourTwo covers the English game mainly and there is little coverage of the Scottish leagues. In terms of coverage of the national teams again it is England that is featured rather than the other home nations. Consequently there are also articles on England manager Sven Goran Eriksson and the in May's issue the trials and tribulations of the new national Stadium to replace Wembley.
One problem I did found with FourFourTwo is that there are few prominent writers contributing to the magazine. The only familiar name was Henry Winter from the daily Telegraph and his article was not particularly good at that. The other main articles I felt were not that good either. The writing style actually falls between the styles of tabloid and broadsheet but not in a compellingly interesting way. With more than one of the main articles I, quite frankly, got bored. The more interesting articles were those where the story was compelling enough to bear the weight of a longer article. From reading FourFourTwo it soon becomes clear that modern day footballers have done little other than train to reach where they are and having reach that pinnacle lead surprisingly similar lives. That being so there are only so many ways you can tell the story.

So if you are interested in foreign clubs or leagues or interested in what has happened to the stars who have now retired then FourFourTwo offers something. If you areinterested only in contemporary players you may as well stick with your clubs own magazine, if they have one.
The magazine does have shorter bite-sized articles which are interesting. These include snippets about grassroots football and news about football on TV. There is a robust letters column as well as a plethora of reviews on football books, videos, Playstation and PC games about football and explaining about football web sites. There is a section in the centre which has foreign league results and tables but this was quite out of date.

I did find FourFourTwo disappointing. I do not know whether it has found a market niche big enough to continue. At £3.10 an issue it is not a lot of money compared to most programmes at matches these days which tend to be a booklet of self-gratification for £2 or so. However for £3.10 it is at the top end of prices for football related magazines and I do not think the quality of writing justifies it. There is better football writing every Saturday in The Times as part of a newspaper costing just 60p.
I won't be a regular buyer of FourFourTwo.

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