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There are various times of the year that I cannot help but link back to sporting events in my childhood. The New Year means Eric Bristow winning another World Darts Championship; freshly cut grass in April equates to FA Cup semi-finals; Easter equals the US Masters; and oddly, December often transports me to the G-Mex Centre in Manchester. Read more »

It seems that hosting football matches in N17 is not solely a modern problem for Tottenham Hotspur. Back in August 1988 the club failed to fulfil a home fixture on the opening day of the season; it would be an appropriately messy start to Terry Venables' first full campaign in charge. Read more »

Admittedly it isn’t a sporting trilogy as celebrated as the Ali-Frazier duels, but for pure sporting theatre, the Scottish League Cup finals contested between Rangers and Aberdeen at the end of the 1980s deserve a great deal of respect. Anything that you may want from a cup final was crammed into the three clashes between 1987-89. Late goals, agonising misses, extra-time, penalty despair, goalkeeping heroics. Perhaps the only thing missing was a red card or two, which was a little surprising given the growing animosity between the clubs. Read more »

It hasn’t always been a case of winning titles and triumphing in Europe for Chelsea. There was a time when the club were playing in a rundown stadium, with property developers lurking, and just staying in the top flight was a challenge in its own right. The 1987/88 season was a prime example of the down side of supporting the West London club. And people say Chelsea have no history. Read more »

Snooker seemingly stood at a crossroads as the 1988 World Championship tournament neared. With less coverage of the sport on our television screens, and viewing figures declining, the glory days of the sport appeared to be fading into the distance. It probably didn’t help that a major crisis was hovering over snooker. During the 1987 World Championships , a number of stories had broken in relation to drug usage, both recreational and performance enabling/enhancing. The next year would be dominated with front page news involving snooker players, rehab, drugs tests, and beta-blockers. Read more »

Not many gave Luton a chance of winning the 1988 Littlewoods Cup final against Arsenal. But in one of the greatest League Cup finals ever, the underdogs would prevail. The warning signs were there for Arsenal prior to the 1988 Littlewoods Cup final. Predicted by many to easily dispose of Luton Town in the Wembley showpiece, George Graham’s team were expected to maintain their grip on the trophy that they had won the year before against Liverpool. But history had proved that Arsenal had often not coped well with the tag of favourites. Read more »

Bristol City will have their work cut out to beat Manchester City in the Carabao Cup semi-finals. But in 1989 they came within a whisker of making it to Wembley. After 180 minutes of their gripping Littlewoods Cup semi-finals, it looked as if extra time would be needed to separate Bristol City and Nottingham Forest. But there would be one final chance for Joe Jordan's Division Three team. As the black and white cue mark flickered on the screens of ITV viewers, a corner dropped on the left foot of City's Alan Walsh, a little over twelve yards out from goal. Opportunity knocked. Read more »

With the 2017 Rugby League World Cup about to start, this week I am taking a look back at the 1985-88 tournament, as Australia continued their domination of the sport. Although the Rugby League World Cup had been running since 1954, the irregular staging of the tournament had not helped the event establish itself in the sporting calendar. Indeed, after the 1977 tournament, it would be another eight years before the International Board decided to resuscitate the concept. A Paris meeting in May 1985 saw the five member nations of Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain, France, and Papua New Guinea agree to take part in a ninth World Cup, although a change in format meant that it was now a three-year event. Read more »

Watching the recent World Cup qualifying match between Scotland and England, I turned to my son and started boring him, as usual, with tales of my sporting childhood. Recalling the era where the England-Scotland fixture was an annual event, and a match that was eagerly anticipated, I felt grateful that I had grown up during this period. With so little live football on our televisions, the England-Scotland match was not far behind the FA Cup final in terms of excitement. Read more »

This article first appeared in  issue 262 of The Gooner There have been a number of awful football competitions organised throughout the history of the sport, from the Anglo-Scottish Cup to the Zenith Data Systems, taking in such delights as the Texaco Cup, ScreenSport Super Cup, and Watney Cup along the way. Fortunately my club, Arsenal, have managed to steer clear of most of these, but in 1988 the club qualified for a cup competition that was organised by the Football League 100 years of the governing body. Read more »

In 1988 you were never more than six minutes away from hearing a Stock, Aitken and Waterman record. So it was no surprise when the trio teamed up with England's European Championship squad to produce All The Way, the title of the song indicating just how confident SAW and the rest of the football following nation were before the tournament. Oh dear. Read more »

Since being ever so slightly pushed towards supporting Arsenal by my dad in the summer of 1983, the FA Cup had not been very kind to me. Embarrassment at Middlesbrough; total humiliation at York ; rolling over at Luton; and anger against Watford . Not the smoothest introduction to the greatest cup competition in the world. For a while it looked as if 1988 would be different. Leading Manchester United 2-1 at Highbury with the minutes ticking away, Arsenal had one foot in the sixth round. But no sooner had my thoughts turned to possible opponents in the last eight, than that sinking feeling returned once more. Read more »