Sid Lowe

Simon James "Sid" Lowe (born 21 June 1976) is an English columnist and journalist. Born in Archway, London, and based in Madrid, he covers Spanish football for many publications, websites, television channels, radio stations, and football-related podcasts across the world.

Sid Lowe
Lowe at Football Weekly Live
Born
Simon James Lowe

(1976-06-21) 21 June 1976
Archway, London, England
NationalityEnglish
EducationUniversity of Sheffield (BA, MA, PhD)
OccupationJournalist

Early life

Lowe was born and raised in north London. He is a fan of neither Arsenal nor Tottenham Hotspur, his two local clubs and fierce rivals, but instead grew up supporting Liverpool. He attributes this to his older brother forbidding him from following Queens Park Rangers, the same team as him, so Lowe picked Liverpool from a list of teams who played in red, settling on them as he admired Kenny Dalglish.[1]

Lowe studied History and Spanish at the University of Sheffield, spending a year in Oviedo for the Spanish language part of his degree. There, he became a fan of local club Real Oviedo. He later took a master's degree in History, followed by a PhD on 20th-century Spanish history. While in Spain performing research for his master's, he was approached by Guardian journalist and university friend Sean Ingle to write a column on Spanish football.[1]

Journalism

Lowe has been writing for The Guardian newspaper and guardian.co.uk website since 2001. He regularly appears (via phone or Skype) on The Guardian's football podcast Football Weekly where he gives updates on the latest news in La Liga, the top division of Spanish football. He conducts a series of relatively lighthearted interviews for an interview series known as "Small Talk" for The Guardian, with Spain-based and Spanish players. Some recurrent questions in the "Small Talk" interview series include: "What was the last CD you bought?", "What was the last book you read?" and "Who would win a fight between a lion and a tiger?"

Websites, television and radio contributions

Lowe writes regularly for World Soccer and FourFourTwo magazines, and gives updates on the Asian television series FourFourTwo. He is TalkSPORT's reporter in Spain who brings regular reports to the Hawksbee and Jacobs show, as well as the Drive Time show with Darren Gough and Adrian Durham. He works as a football commentator and panelist for Spanish, Asian and US television, and appears on the TV channel of Real Madrid. Lowe can also be heard regularly on the US soccer podcast Beyond the Pitch where he gives regular La Liga updates several times a month.

Together with Fillippo Ricci, the Spanish football correspondent for Gazzetta dello Sport, and Martin Ainstein, a reporter, commentator and correspondent for ESPN football in Spain, Lowe participates in a YouTube series called Foreign Desk, devoted to the coverage of football in Spain. The three journalists discuss the weekly events in Spanish football in a casual and informal manner. Each episode lasts about four-and-a-half minutes. The trio also does a version of the show in Spanish in tandem which is called Los Corresponsales.

Other works

In February 2008, Lowe completed a PhD, titled "The Juventud de Acción Popular in Spain, 1932-1937", at the University of Sheffield.[2] On 1 October 2010, the thesis was published as a book by Sussex Academic Press titled Catholicism, War and the Foundation of Francoism: The Juventud de Acción Popular in Spain, 1932-1937.[3] The book expanded on his thesis and deals with the political history of the Catholic youth movement during the Spanish Second Republic and Spanish Civil War.[4]

During his time in Spain, Lowe acted as a translator for players like David Beckham, Michael Owen, and Thomas Gravesen.[5] He is known to be a fan and shareholder of the Spanish club Real Oviedo.[6][7]

He is also the author of the acclaimed book Fear and Loathing in La Liga: Barcelona, Real Madrid, and the World's Greatest Sports Rivalry, which chronicles the relationship between the two Spanish giants and was a nominee for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year for 2013.[8]

Controversies

In August 2008, Lowe wrote a news piece for The Guardian that caused considerable controversy in Spain, in which he reported on a photo that showed the Spain national basketball team posing in a way that could potentially be seen as offensive to Chinese and other Asian people.[9] The Chinese embassy in Spain declared that they "didn't consider the gesture as racist".[10] Although the article was relatively short and appeared on page 9 of the newspaper's sports section,[11] it touched off a heated back and forth between Spain and the "Anglo-Saxon" world.[12] Lowe had to write an article explaining and defending the publishing of the article in the Media section of The Guardian's website. In the article he recounted the backlash that he experienced in the Spanish media after the publication of the article.

gollark: It is not. A factored version is waaay more useful.
gollark: I meant the bottom part of the fraction thing you're simplifying.
gollark: (E-S)³ then, I think.
gollark: Oh, MINUSES, oops.
gollark: Actually, it appears to literally be (E+S)³.

References
  1. Fisher, Produced by Jonathan; Glendenning, presented by Max Rushden; with Barry; Lowe, Sid (26 March 2020). "Sid Lowe on Sid Lowe – Football Weekly Extra". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 27 March 2020.
  2. "The Juventud de Acción Popular in Spain, 1932-1937". Archived from the original on 28 June 2008.
  3. Lowe, Sid. Catholicism, War and the Foundation of Francoism: The Juventud De Acción Popular in Spain, 1931-1939. Sussex Academic Press, 2010.
  4. "WorkingforJusticeReviews.pdf", n.d. http://www.irle.ucla.edu/publications/pdf/WorkingforJusticeReviews.pdf.
  5. "Sid Lowe." The Guardian, 10 October 2007. http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/sidlowe.
  6. Last, Danny. "European Football Weekends: Sid Lowe." European Football Weekends, 15 May 2010. http://europeanfootballweekends.blogspot.com/2010/05/sid-lowe.html.
  7. "Sid Lowe on Twitter".
  8. UK, The Huffington Post (2 October 2013). "Sports Book Of The Year Longlist Announced".
  9. Lowe, Sid (10 August 2008). "Olympics: Spain's eye-catching faux pas" – via The Guardian.
  10. La Embajada de China en España no lo considera una ofensa a los ciudadanos chinos ni un gesto racista, El País, 13 August 2008 (in Spanish).
  11. "Spain's Olympic Race Row: Don't Shoot the Messenger | Media | Guardian.co.uk", n.d. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/aug/15/olympicsandthemedia.pressandpublishing.
  12. "What the World Is Saying: The Guardian's Man in Spain on Those Photos." Rings Blog, n.d. http://beijing2008.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/15/what-the-world-is-saying-the-guardians-man-on-spain-and-that-photo/.
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