1983 US Open: Jo Durie

There are certain sporting events of the past that I'm not sure will ever happen again in my lifetime: England winning the football World Cup; a Scotsman winning the 100m Olympic final; a team going through a whole season of top flight football undefeated. Of course, these things could occur in the next 60 years or so, but in my opinion they are highly unlikely.

However, anything is possible. What about a British female tennis player progressing to the semi-finals of a grand slam singles tournament? Hopefully this should happen before my innings is over, and Laura Robson's recent form is encouraging, but it is a full 29 years since a British female has reached the last four of a grand slam singles tournament. As the US Open began earlier this week, I decided to cast my mind back to Jo Durie's fine run to the semi-finals of the 1983 event, an achievement that appears to grow and grow as the years roll on.

1980s commentary moments

A slight change of format this week. No dedicated blog on the one event, as I doff my cap slightly to the Guardian's excellent Joy of Six column, and pick my six favourite commentary moments of the 1980s (although, unlike the Joy of Six, this is my definitive top six). There are a few that I've had to cut from my final list, and these may turn up one day in a volume two blog, but for now please enjoy my pick of the 80s. They are in no particular order, but I simply had to start with this one first....

1988-89: First Division opening day

Football, whether we like it or not, is now a multi-million pound business. Personally, I'm not totally sure who I should blame for this: Sky, the introduction of the Premier League, Gazza and all his tears, Euro 96, the list goes on. However, there were times in the 70s and early to mid-80s where football was dieing a slow and painful death, as hooliganism along with poor grounds and facilities led to a steady decline in crowd attendances.

Rock bottom had to be reached, and in 1985 it arrived in the shape of Bradford (an accident waiting to happen) and Heysel (a sadly inevitable consequence of the "English disease"). As English football spent the rest of the eighties taking a good long look inwardly, gradually, bit by bit, the game in this country started to get it's house in order.

By the end of the 80s it was becoming apparent that football was beginning to turn a corner, as clubs started to splash the cash and television began to get their hands on the beautiful game.

1985: 1st Ashes Test

June 1985, and as the English nation tries to get over the shame of Heysel, and prepare itself for the forthcoming Live Aid concert, an Ashes series is about to get under way in Leeds. Think of the Ashes in the modern era and the hype is almost suffocating, Sky's '100 days to go' banner prior to the 2010/11 series a prime example of this.

It wasn't always this way though, as the 1985 series proves. A three-page cricket special in the Daily Express on the morning of the first test, and coverage starting at 10:55am (five minutes build-up!) was as far as the Ashes hype stretched to in Thatcher's Britain.

1984: Seb Coe 1500m

As Lord Sebastian Newbold Coe appeared on television yet again the other day, a thought occurred to me: How many people only know this man for his role as chairman of the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games, rather than that of a world-class athlete? Holder of numerous world records in his running career, twice Olympic champion, and still a British record holder in two distances (800 and 1000 metres), Coe quite rightly sits proudly amongst the Olympic heroes of our nation, and should be celebrated accordingly. 

Beating Steve Ovett in the 1500m at the Moscow games was spectacular enough, but the back story to his repeat performance in Los Angeles is even more remarkable. If it wasn't for a very favourable selectorial decision going in his favour, the whole tale would have been over before it began.

1988 Open Championship: Seve Ballesteros

Sunday 22 July, 1984: A Spaniard stands on the 18th green at St. Andrews, punching the air in sheer joy, with a smile on his face that lights up the world. Some 400 miles away, an 8-year-old boy watches his first ever Open Championship on television, and is immediately captivated by this man, beginning an obsession with Severiano Ballesteros that still goes on to this day.

As the Open Championship returns to Lytham in 2012, it is impossible not to think of Seve, and all that he achieved there. As this blog specialises in 1980s sporting events, it is obvious that Seve's 1988 Open triumph will be the focus of this piece, and not his first major win in 1979 on the same course. It is hard to write about your heroes, but here goes....

1987: Stephen Roche

What is the favourite year of your life? What, you don't have one? Surely you must? I'm betting if you ask any sportsman or woman that question, then the chances are that the answer will come that much easier than from the mouths of us mere mortals; Steffi Graf may well say 1988, the year in which she pulled off her Golden Slam; Dennis Taylor would surely reply 1985; Andrew Flintoff 2005; Kelly Holmes 2004. The list goes on and on. But certainly it would be unlikely that if you ever saw Irish cyclist Stephen Roche and asked him to pick his favourite twelve months of his life, that he would answer any differently than 1987.