1988 Wimbledon

Continuing my 1988 Grand Slam tennis series, a look back this week on the 1988 Wimbledon Championships. A tournament that saw one Grand Slam ambition end and another continue, more British disappointment, classic semi-finals, and a Swede confirm his undoubted talent by winning the Wimbledon title.

Ivan Lendl - The Man Who Made Murray

It is dangerous to go through your life with the same opinions on someone or something that you have always believed to be true. So as my life has progressed, I have always tried to educate myself on matters that I feel need addressing. Obviously with me that involves sporting issues rather than sensible, grown-up things, but what do you expect?

Therefore, reading Ivan Lendl - The Man Who Made Murray by Mark Hodgkinson was a valuable experience for me, a real eye-opener. Previously I had held the firm belief that Lendl was dull, cold, boring, and seriously lacking on the personality front. As I read the book, I discovered that I was not alone in this view, after all, Lendl was hardly Mr Popular on the international tennis scene in the 1980s. But in his excellent and engrossing book, Hodgkinson sets about tackling the misconceptions and myths surrounding the man, who would eventually win eight Grand Slam singles titles, and as the title suggests, help Andy Murray to realise his ambitions.

1986 World Cup A to Z

We all remember our first World Cup; the excitement and anticipation felt as a child when you experience wall-to-wall football for a month. This week I have decided to compile my personal A to Z of Mexico '86, including Maradona, Lineker, and a green mascot that nearly saw me develop an addiction to chocolate.

1980 Mundialito

What better way to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first ever World Cup in Uruguay than to arrange a tournament between the six previous winners, a champion of champions event played in the very same country where the World Cup had first kicked-off all those years ago? And so the Mundialito (Little World Cup) or Copa de Oro (Gold Cup) was conceived in 1979, the celebratory tournament to be played in December 1980 and January 1981, contested between Uruguay, Italy, West Germany, Brazil, England, and Argentina.

1988 French Open Tennis

Roland Garros had been hosting the French Open championships for 60 years when the second Grand Slam event of the 1988 season began in Paris. It would be a tournament which saw the Grand Slam dream staying alive for two players, former greats falling by the wayside, a teenage invasion of the women's singles, French hopes raised and then dashed at the last, and a women's final that set records, yet one which Natasha Zvereva would probably prefer to forget.

1986/87 FA Cup final

This piece follows on from my previous blogs on the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth rounds and semi-finals of the 1986/87 FA Cup, which you can view here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

"Seven times we've won the cup, and number eight is coming up". The bold statement penned by Chas and Dave, and sung by the Tottenham squad in their number 18 hit Hot Shot Tottenham!, may have seemed cocky, but the general consensus was that it was a proclamation that would come true as Cup final day on May 16 approached.

Tottenham were heavy favourites to defeat Coventry, a club appearing in their first major final in their 104-year history. But the underdogs were used to proving the doubters wrong during their 1987 cup run. Their Go For It single was an appropriately titled anthem for all that had gone before and what was to follow.

1980s: Sporting thrashings

There can be nothing worse than being on the end of a sporting thrashing. I should know, having once played in for a junior football team which lost a match 33-0 (we made the local paper and earned a free trip to Burger King and the local cinema to watch Home Alone, so we did get something out of it).

My embarrassment was fortunately limited, a very local affair that I have tried my best to forget. But many of the participants in the following sporting thrashings were not as lucky as me. Theirs was very much a national or international humbling, played out in front of the watching public, read about by sports fans at the time and since.