1983: Surrey 14 all out

The Boomtown Rats and Surrey County Cricket Club might not have a lot in common. But I think it would have been safe to say that on May 30, 1983, anyone associated with the county would have agreed that they really didn’t like Mondays. We’ve all had bad days at the office, yet we ordinary folk at least have the benefit of displaying our inadequacies in front of relatively few people.

1984: County Championship drama

Essex recently won their first County Championship in 25 years. But for sheer drama, surely nothing could match their 1984 triumph.

As far as I know, no one has ever written a film based on the County Championship. But if a budding writer wanted to take a step into uncharted territory, and pen the first Hollywood blockbuster on this subject, then the person involved would do themselves a big favour by taking a look at the events of the 1984 season. A campaign running from April to September, came down to the penultimate ball of a match in Somerset, with the fate of two counties hanging in the Taunton air.

1985: NatWest Trophy Final

If you're a reader of a certain age, then I'm sure you can remember a time when the end of season one-day final at Lord's was a special occasion in the domestic cricket season. Tickets would be sold out for the final weeks in advance (as I found out to my cost when trying to see Northants v Warwickshire in 1995), and every match seemed to go down to the wire in the gloaming of St. John's Wood. Of course, this wasn't always the case, but the beauty of writing this blog is that it allows me to remember my sporting childhood in a more favourable light than maybe was the case. However, in the heyday of the 80s, the NatWest final (or Gillette if you're even older than me), was a must see event, and the 1985 final between Essex and Nottinghamshire would join the hall of fame of classic finals.