#21

I have vague memories of Hillsbrough but I’m not sure if my family were watching the match live or if I saw a news report. I just vague memories of seeing ambulances on a football pitch and thinking that something wasn’t right.

At some point in the late 80s I remember watching a football match with my dad. I remember writing about it at school the following Monday where we had ‘diary class’ where we had to write about we did at the weekend. I don’t remember who played, but the match finished 3-1.

I remember having a wall chart of Italia '90 on my bedroom wall and my dad waking me up every morning and writing the previous days scores. I remember thinking ‘South Korea are cool’ because I liked their flag the most. I was 7 so.

So the first match I remember watching in full was England’s exit from Euro '92. Can’t find the clip with the commentary, but I remember ‘Brolin… Dahlin… Brolin… Brilliant!’

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#22

France 98 as we did the whole hog - panini stickers, cuddly toy mascot, those coins from the petrol station. Specifically it would be Argentina - England probably, remember being really sad when we lost to Romania but don’t remember anything from the game itself. Remember the final too.

Next thing would be United’s treble, then the Sydney Olympics (Redgrave, Thorpe & Freeman), stops being too patchy after that

#23

The earliest football thing I can remember must have been around 91. It’s only a second or two long memory but it was Neil Webb kicking the ball in what I guess was a clearance. The ball went higher than the stadium (or probably just past the top of the camera frame) and I said I was a Man United fan for a couple of years after that because I was so impressed. Don’t think I watched another game for years but I started buying these from the Man United shop in town
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Only I got them when they went on sale so they were always 6 months or so behind. I think that was my only exposure to football, so I’d only find out how seasons played out way later than it actually happened.

I also remember being aware of Italia 90 being on TV but don’t think I ever watched any. The first tournament I had any interest in and what ignited my interest properly was World Cup 94. Diana Ross, Ray Houghton scoring against Italy, John Aldridge on the sidelines, the name “Dunga”, Brazil being spoken of in mythical terms and the shock that one of these Gods, Leonardo, could be sent off, Baggio’s rat tail, Jorge Campos all stuck with me and have never left.

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#24

Oldham v Notts Forest League Cup Final 1990. I remember that entire weekend and is probably my consistent earliest memory of anything. Remember being in Crete during Italia 90 and the elation me Dad had the day after Belgium.

#25

@Roughyed - Must resist urge, sorry can’t - it’s Nottm Forest, not Notts!.

My first memories of football are seeing Lineker’s goals at Mexico 86 & watching the Hand of God game. I went to my first Forest game vs Luton later that year (Neil Webb scored & became my first favourite player) and I’ve had a season ticket from the 87-88 season to date.

I went to all the Wembley finals we made in the late 80’s/early 90’s, including the Oldham one. Sadly I was also at Hillsborough too, a tragic day which I’ll never forget.

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#26

1985 fa cup final

#27

Football:
World Cup in 86 I was 1yo, and there must have been a moment where a commentator on TV had done the typical South American commentator thing of saying ARGENTINA in a really long drawn out way that caused my dad to say it in front of me a lot. Apparently on a family holiday that summer I slammed my hands on the lunch table and belted out AAAAAARGENTIIIIIIIIIIIINAAAAAA which my dad claims was my first word*

More realistically, it was probably getting a small Italia 90 football from McDonalds 4 years after that.

(*probably not my first word)

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#28

I was at the winter olympics in 1994 :skier::1st_place_medal:

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#29

You’re all ridiculously young!
Mine was the 1978 World Cup and being amazed at the ticker tape and feeling confused as to why a Scottish footballer had to come home early.

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#30

Football - Aberdeen v Rangers in the 1983 Scottish Cup final I think. Wasn’t much on TV back then. First game was Elgin City vs Peterhead at the start of the 84-85 season!

Tennis - I knew of John McEnroe long before I saw a tennis game due to stacks of “you can’t be serious” pastiches that seemed to go on well into 1985 when I saw Boris Becker win Wimbledon.

Athletics - Steve Cram winning 1500m gold in the World Champs, 1983.

A Question of Sport - 1984 series with Bill Beaumont and Willy Carson.

Remember Robin Cousins and Torvill and Dean being on all the time.

#31

Didn’t really watch much sport as a kid, so some of my memories are a bit late considering my age.

Football - Ultra-vague memories of Mexico 86, but proper memory is Brazil v Scotland, Italia 90

Football related - Bradford stadium fire, 1985 (also my earliest news related memory)

F1 - Mansell pumping everybody at the 1992 British GP

Tennis - Agassi v Ivanisevic, 1992 Wimbledon Final

Athletics - that Mens’ 100m Final, 1988 Seoul Olympics (TBH, I think I remember Johnson winning his semi final too)

Cycling - Chris Boardman, 1992 Barcelona Olympics

Golf - Greg Norman’s epic collapse, 1996 Masters

NFL - San Francisco 49ers 55-10 Denver Broncos, Superbowl XXIV, 1990 (dad was well into NFL at the time and let me stay up late to watch it despite having school the next day :grinning:)

Rugby - don’t know, don’t care

#32

I forgot cycling. For definite it would be Roche coming out of the mist behind Delgado at the tour in 87, though I do have vague memories of the Lemond Hinault 86 tour.

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#33

Footy - Gary Pallister scoring a free-kick on the last day of the first Premier League season. Don’t even support Utd.

Looking on Ceefex to see that Oleg Salenko scored 5 (five) against someone at USA 94.

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#34

Football would be the 1990 World Cup - I specifically remember watching the 3rd place playoff between England and Italy, would assume that I watched other matches but have no real recollection of that. also remember Spurs winning the FA Cup in 1991 (my dad was a Spurs fan) and Man Utd winning the Cup Winners Cup that year too. stopped watching much football for a bit from then for reasons, til I remember coming home from the shops and then seeing the end of the 1994 FA Cup final between Man Utd and Chelsea, liking that, then there was the World Cup and it all snowballed from there

for F1, I specifically remember that Mansell v Senna battle at Monaco in 1992 being the first thing I remember about F1 - them going through Rascasse nose to tail is properly stuck in my memory. for some reason I think I didn’t actually watch it live, but I think I was watching Grandstand and they had a gap so just showed the end of that race again cos it was good, no idea if that’s true or why I’d remember such a specific point, but there you go. been watching ever since, bar a bit of a dip in the early 2000s when Ferrari made it very very dull.

#35

Italia 90, but more the hype around it, Nessun Dorma, Gascoigne crying, a small promotional football I had etc than actually sitting and watching whole matches. That was when I was only just 7.

As a player I remember being taken along to play proper 5-a-side with a friend from school and I was just clueless. I scored an own goal as I thought you could score at either end.

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#36

I got hooked on cycling watching the 89 Tour on Channel 4. The classic Lemond vs Fignon TT.

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#37

Boxing: Remember being gutted when Bruno lost to Tyson in '96, but this is my earliest, was 8, remember my dad explaining it and thinking “what?!!” Thought things like this happened at every match…

#38

I was at that game. It was the second year we’d been turfed out of the FA Cup by a lower-league side, after a 2-0 defeat to Bolton Wanderers the year before. Souness - great player, poor manager - resigned soon after. This, from Simon Hughes’s book Men in White Suits, is interesting.

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#39

Football:

The first game I watched was Norwich defeating Bayern Munich and then being knocked out by a young Dennis Bergkamp for Inter :smiley:

I had only just turned 5 and so I only have vague memories of it, but I didn’t really have much context for it as my parents weren’t really watching at the time, but I do recall there being excitement around the city for it and is basically what begun my interest in football and as a Norwich City fan. All downhill from there of course but at the time I just assumed Norwich being in Europe was a normal thing to expect (it was the tail end of our most successful period, tbf, where we’d have already qualified for Europe a couple of times had it not been for the Heysel Disaster ban, but I learnt that much later).

The first game I distinctly remember watching was the 1994 League Cup final where Villa upset United, obviously, at the time I didn’t quite appreciate that it was such a big deal (though I was already aware that United was the big bad at the time) but I vividly remember United’s Green & Gold strip looking similar to Norwich’s and Villa’s Muller shirt.

I then watched pretty much every single moment of USA '94 that I was able/allowed to, had tapes of the stuff so became pretty obsessed with it, remember cheering on Ireland beating Italy in the opener even though Roberto Baggio (yes, 5/6 yr old Sev had rat tail for a while as a result) and a young Henrik Larsson immediately became my guys though I also enjoyed lads like Gabriel Batistuta (and being confused as to why his strike partner had suddenly been sent home from the competition), Finidi George (and that Nigeria strip) and Hristo Stoichkov.

I also remember getting in NBA after MJ returned from his year off/Space Jam and being kinda amazed by that Bulls team’s dominance (I elected to be a Seattle SuperSonics fan though I remember picking up a Charlotte Hornets shirt from somewhere so also liked them).

I have some vague memories of NFL in the late 90s/early 2000s too, partly due to playing Madden and remember John Elway riding off into the sunset, but I didn’t really get into it until the “helmet catch” Superbowl in 2008

Somewhat morbidly my earliest memory of Wrestling is Owen Hart dying, and vaguely The Undertaker Dark Wedding/Ministry of Darkness/Corporation/It’s Me Austin! Bollix, but I distinctly remember the whole who ran over Stone Cold? and Triple H stealing Steph from MY BOY TEST so I guess we can firmly ascertain that November 1999 was when I started watching regularly :smiley:

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#40

Cracking thread!

Football - Manchester Utd Top Trumps 1983. No idea where these came from, no one in my family liked football and no idea why I became a Man U fan…Went full wall chart/sticker album wanker for the 86 World Cup. I have a very vivid memory of having a kick-about before coming home to see Hillsborough unfold on the telly.

1984 Olympics - Went crazy for it. Daley Thompson, Zola Budd, Seb Coe and all that. I made a scrap book.

Tennis - The teachers at my primary school would watch Wimbledon on a TV (television not romantic partner) which was wheeled into the staff room at lunchtimes.