22. ABSOLUTE VERY FIRST TIME...SPORTING CLASSICS

The absolute very first time I watched a sporting classic was probably the World Cup Final in 1966. I was born by then but hardly old enough to argue about whether or not the ball had crossed the line although apparently my Dad suspected that I had controversially queried the Russian linesman’s decision and so dispatched me to the doghouse as a result. This, in our case, was a cold outdoors kennel next to the guinea pig hutch at the bottom of the garden but that’s how your parents taught you a lesson in the 60s, even if you were 9 months old and had simply got a bout of colic at the same time as Hurst's shot came down off the bar.

By 1970, I still wasn’t really old enough to appreciate Gordon Banks’ save from Pele’s header (here) or work out how Chelsea’s Peter Bonetti had dumped us out of the World Cup (he didn’t play for Germany – he was our reserve goalie). And afterwards, we never made it to the finals for another 12 years thanks to a Polish ‘clown’ of a goalkeeper in 1974 (I wish Bonetti had been as funny) and a lack of goals against the European powerhouse that was Finland in 1978. Even then, Spain '82 was a blink-and-you-missed-it affair (much like Kevin Keegan's header in our final game) and my formative years came and went without the excitement of a major tournament run thanks to Keegan's hairdresser and the extravagant ball-deflecting perm he created.

I was sports-mad in my younger days. Summer holidays in North Devon (and sometimes, if my folks were feeling adventurous, South Devon too) were spent either playing beach cricket (Dad would encourage other families to join in so that he had someone to go to the pub with later – absolutely true) or listening to Test Match Special in the wind-swept sand dunes of Woolacombe Beach which is where I first heard that the bowler’s holding the batsman’s willy and thought this cricket lark sounded like a bit of a laugh.

My favourite sporting moment has to be Botham’s Ashes in 1981. The cricketers England produced in the 70s and 80s tended to be as exciting as watching grass grow (although, when Boycott and Tavare were batting on the lawns of Lords, at least you had both options available). But then came Beefy Botham who would out-Aussie the Aussies by getting pissed, shagging barmaids and smashing their bowlers into various confectionery stalls and out again.

I was quite the sports tart in the 70s and 80s and would enjoy anything which had a competitive edge to it. Red Rum was more than just pet food to me, John Curry and Torvill & Dean made ice skating exciting (I readily admit to crying when the row of 6.0s came up for Bolero), Maradona’s Hand of God was not divine intervention just cheating (I cried again) and Borg vs McEnroe at Wimbledon gripped my imagination because, in those pre Tim Henman and Andy Murray days, we had no local heroes to get behind (though Virginia Wade gave a short-lived but rather more patriotic boost to the Queen's Silver Jubilee than the Sex Pistols had managed a few weeks before).

The Olympics were a nightmare during the 70s & 80s – terrorist attacks, corrupt officials, bankrupt host cities and so many national boycotts that it’s amazing our policy of Swiss-like neutrality (which saw a GB team turn up every 4 years regardless of the political fall-out) didn't yield a greater tally of gold medals. The athletics was always good fun though. If Juantorena wasn't opening his legs and showing us his class then Daley Thompson was trying to whistle the national anthem and posh Seb Coe was taking on working class Steve Ovett in every running event the rules allowed them to enter, with World or Olympic records tumbling on almost every occasion (although surely you could only be considered a record breaker if your achievement was endorsed by Roy Castle and the McWhirter twins?).

I even watched snooker although I couldn’t fathom how the game became so popular (other than the BBC using our licence fee to sell it back to us as hard as it could). We had plenty of ball games where people ran like the wind and battered each other senseless so why such a static one proved so popular is beyond me. I loved Alex Higgins and Jimmy White but ‘hurricane’ and ‘whirlwind’?? Was this supposed to be ironic? They sauntered around a table with a stick, sometimes at a brisk walking pace I grant you, but it was hardly running the 100 metres in less than 10 seconds was it? And how on earth did Steve Boring Davis become the top TV personality of all of them? Snooker Loopy indeed.

My Dad and brother were very handy rugby players so I’d watch all the key Union games on telly (I’ve lost count how many times I’d seen the Baa Baas famous try vs the All Blacks in 1973 – “this is Gareth Edwards, a dramatic start, what a score” - until I married a kiwi and weirdly I'd not seen it since until now). If I was lucky, Dad would take me to Twickenham. When Erica Roe turned up topless at the game against Australia in 1977, so did I (although, to be clear, I was 11 years old and we travelled separately). I'd never seen my Dad so absorbed with what was happening on a rugby pitch as he was at the sight of a policeman’s helmet cupping one of Erica's ample breasts and only just managing to fit it in.

Everyone could watch top sport on TV in those days because the main channels had all the popular events as well as the best presenters - Dickie Davies, Brian Moore, Jimmy ‘Chinny Rec-kon’ Hill and Frank Bough (who lived down the road from me until recently and once, when I hummed the Grandstand theme tune to him as he walked past my house, hilariously told me - light entertainment legend that he was - to piss off). To be fair, we were lacking when it came to HD replays from 34 different camera angles but at least we didn’t have VAR. Or Gary Lineker. The only time we saw him was slotting in the goals from 3 feet out rather than lecturing us on MOTD or social media. We didn’t realise how lucky we were. He was famously the nation's favourite Mr Nice Guy because he never got sent off but, boy, has he been making up for it ever since.

Sport in the 70s & 80s seems so different to today. Rugby players and footballers could act like Muhammad Ali (not the dancing feet or the rhyming couplets – I mean throwing punches) and not be reprimanded. Now they get sent off for a decent tackle. When the umpire gave you out, you were out and when the linesman raised his flag, it wasn’t a goal. When a try was scored, the only person to see multiple replays of it was you while the ref got on with sorting out the conversion. You knew where you stood and could celebrate (or throw a tantrum like Keegan in Superstars) safe in the knowledge that the decision wouldn't be reversed. The fact that Kev got his bike race re-run is the exception which proves the rule.

Our commentators were equally reliable - if Dan Maskell exclaimed ‘oh I say’, he invariably did and when Kenneth Wolstenholme told us they think it's all over, it was. The only reason we never saw the bowler holding the batsman's willy was because, sadly, TMS never actually suggested he was and it's an urban myth. And, if non-media savvy footballers and their managers gave an interview on MOTD or The Big Match, they told us what they actually thought rather than what their PR people told them they thought. As a result, you never quite knew what Brian Clough would say except if you lived in my house because then it would be my impression of him every night once I’d gone through my Frank Spencer and Dick Emery repertoire. Sport (and life) was so much more simple then.

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Next: ABSOLUTE VERY FIRST TIME......FINDUS CRISPY PANCAKES

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