Introducing the ‘It’s More Than a Game’ issue

Like many peo­ple, I first learnt of Jude Bellingham’s stop­page time scis­sor kick through the ecsta­t­ic screech­es of my neigh­bours. Our stream lagged by about a cou­ple of min­utes as we sat in our liv­ing room, ner­vous­ly watch­ing the min­utes tick down on England’s Euro 2024 round of 16 match against Slo­va­kia. A wild­ly under­whelm­ing tour­na­ment looked set to end with a lack­lus­tre 1 – 0 loss until the tow­ers and the blocks around my north Lon­don flat erupted.

When our feed final­ly caught up, I watched the rea­son why — heart flut­ter­ing, grip­ping onto our cof­fee table for dear life, shout­ing with joy as the Real Madrid Mid­field­er swung his legs over his head, punt­ing the ball into the back of the net, lev­el­ling the scores in the 5^th minute of stop­page time. A minute into extra time, we were right back there, watch­ing Har­ry Kane head­er in the win­ning goal.

A lack­lus­tre final that we deserved to lose (sor­ry) did noth­ing to break the spir­it of com­mu­ni­ty, joy and hope that coa­lesced around Euro 2024, played out in cities across Ger­many. A lit­tle under two weeks lat­er, across the Rhineland, the world’s eyes turned to Paris for the Olympics. The less said about the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny the bet­ter, (Celine Dion singing Edith Piaf from the top of the Eif­fel Tow­er notwith­stand­ing), the Olympics made arm­chair com­men­ta­tors of mil­lions as they watched elec­tri­fy­ing per­for­mances in the French cap­i­tal (and beyond), becom­ing experts in [insert sport they’d nev­er seen before] for an after­noon before swift­ly mov­ing on to the next.

The sum­mer of sport has not been with­out con­tro­ver­sy, upset or loss. But amongst it all, it has shown how sport­ing com­pe­ti­tions can bring us togeth­er. How it can shine a mir­ror on us, expose our strengths, lay out our weak­ness­es and expose our flaws. Sport is so much more than 90 min­utes of a foot­ball match or 20 sec­onds of a sprint. It is years of train­ing, oppor­tu­ni­ty and luck. It is fund­ing deci­sions made by suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments, rul­ings made by sport­ing bod­ies and points award­ed by judges. It is the breadth and depth of human expe­ri­ence, played out in the twists and tum­bles of a dive.

Many months ago, on a rainy Jan­u­ary after­noon, Huck print edi­tor Josh Jones and I took refuge in a pub in Not­ting Hill to brain­storm ideas for pieces that went beyond what you see on your screens. Over a few pints (nat­u­ral­ly), we spoke about the ways we could use sport, ath­letes, and com­pe­ti­tions to look back at our­selves and our soci­ety, and right there, the ​‘It’s More Than A Game’ issue was born.

Josh has spent many months pulling togeth­er the incred­i­ble sto­ries with­in it — whether it’s our cov­er star Lau­ra Crane’s inspir­ing jour­ney from pro tour surf­ing as a teenag­er to tak­ing on misog­y­ny in the sport, along with the biggest waves in the world at Nazaré, or the B‑boy leg­end Sheku break­ing with the best in the world despite a lack of spon­sor­ship. There are dives into ter­race songs and how FIFA sound­tracks reflect our view on mas­culin­i­ty to inter­views with mys­te­ri­ous Pre­mier­ship foot­baller rap­pers and how dub­step pio­neer Jok­er has used BMX­ing and Moto Cross bikes to inspire his music. We’ve also got the most gru­elling race in the world, women’s foot­ball in Zam­bia, the inspi­ra­tional Gaza Sun­birds and much more. Through­out the mag­a­zine you’ll find sto­ries of hope, of adver­si­ty, of pas­sion and pain. You’ll find stun­ning pho­tog­ra­phy and beau­ti­ful design. But most impor­tant­ly, you’ll find peo­ple — in all of their dif­fer­ent guis­es, fac­ing chal­lenges and break­ing down barriers.

After an incred­i­ble and elec­tri­fy­ing sum­mer of sport, Huck 81 is your chance to get in behind the podi­um fin­ish­es. To meet the peo­ple, the places and the com­mu­ni­ties to push bound­aries and tell a dif­fer­ent sto­ry. This is the More Than A Game issue, we’re very proud of it and we hope you love it.

Buy your copy of Huck 81 here.

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