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.

1985: European Grand Prix

If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again. A phrase that trips off the tongue easily enough, but imagine trying to apply this principal 72 times to a certain aspect of your life. For that is the number of attempts that Nigel Mansell, CBE, had to make before achieving his first Grand Prix victory, which could easily be forgotten amongst all that followed for the Englishman. And to make things that much sweeter, Mansell achieved his maiden success on home soil and left a former team principal with a rather large portion of egg on his face.

Wimbledon 1987: Pat Cash

It would be no exaggeration to state that, from a male perspective, Wimbledon in the mid-80s was owned by one man: Boris Becker. After winning the singles title as an unseeded player in 1985, Becker proved to the world that this triumph was no fluke, retaining his crown in 1986 by beating Ivan Lendl in the final. Come 1987, the 1986 finalists were again expected to make the final with the bookies, Becker an extremely skinny 4/5 to make it three in a row, and world number one Ivan Lendl at 3/1 to finally add Wimbledon to his grand slam title haul. The rest of the field were way down in the betting: Stefan Edberg 10/1 and the Australian Pat Cash 16/1 looking attractive each-way bets at a push. Even if you were not of a gambling persuasion, it was hard to look beyond the two front runners: the Swedes Mats Wilander and Stefan Edberg had never progressed past the fourth round in their previous Wimbledon visits; Jimmy Connors was past his peak; others, such as Yannick Noah, were unproven on grass; and no one else in the top 16 seeds at Wimbledon had even won a grand slam singles event.

1987: Frank Bruno v Joe Bugner

Not all British heavyweight clashes are as naff, classless and tacky as Haye-Chisora. In relatively recent years, I can recall a couple of 'Battle of Britain' bouts that I was genuinely excited about: Lewis v Mason, and Lewis v Bruno. But before these fights, there was another in 1987 that was just as eagerly anticipated, between 25-year-old Frank Bruno and the much travelled 37-year-old Joe Bugner. 

It was a fight that wasn't supposed to happen, a fight that saw one promoter take his first steps into the boxing world, and one which would provide Bruno with the chance to silence his critics, temporarily at least.

Keith Deller: 1983 World Darts Champion

Sporting legacies are all well and good, but there is something to be said for that one occasion in a sporting career where everything seems to click for the competitor involved. A one-off performance when all falls into place, or a tournament where for some reason, the participant can do no wrong, and is fully in the zone. 

So for every Davis or Hendry, there will always be a Joe Johnson; Sampras may have dominated Wimbledon, but for two glorious weeks in 1996, Richard Krajicek reached levels that he probably didn't know existed in his game; and Bristow may have ruled world darts in the early to mid-eighties, though for one magical week in 1983 in Stoke-on-Trent, Keith Deller, a 23-year-old from Ipswich, shocked the darting world by becoming the first qualifier to win the World Championship, and the youngest winner at that.

Euro 88: England v Ireland

We're going all the way. Not my words, the lyrical masterpiece of Stock, Aitken and Waterman, "sung" by the England football squad prior to the Euro 88 finals. As events unfolded the words of this song could not have been further from the truth; in hindsight 'Don't Come Home Too Soon' by Del Amitri might have been more appropriate. As performances go England had a shocker, both in the recording studio, and more pertinently for England fans, on the pitch too.