Sex, Drugs, Hop and Pole

Before Marathon Fever struck Britain, some of the most famous sportswomen on the planet were athletes. Apart from a few plucky Brits, most seemed to hail from Eastern Europe. The Soviet Union and East Germany dominated, and I would watch the likes of Renate Stecher, then later sprinter/long-jumper Heike Drechsler, sprinter Marlies Gohr and javelin thrower Petra Felke reigning supreme in their dark blue vests. Marita Koch and the burly permed figure of Czechoslovakia’s Jarmila Kratochvilova enjoyed some fascinating tussles throughout the early Eighties, setting world records in the 400 metres and 800 metres, respectively, which have yet to be broken.

They were almost certainly achieved with the aid of steroids provided by national coaches, without the knowledge of the athletes themselves but, as we know, the so-called Western world cannot cast the first stone when it comes to allegations of cheating. From Marion Jones to Justin Gatlin, Linford Christie to Dwain Chambers, the rogues gallery is formidable, and they were just the ones who were caught and/or publicly identified.

At the time, I just lapped up the excitement of the sport. Nobody had ‘I am a cheat’ on their vest, so I just took the competition at face value. It wasn’t only on the track where the great contests took place. The field events tend to be used as fillers on TV, recorded throws and jumps being squeezed in between the ballyhoo of the better-known runners. However, occasionally they would provide as much, if not more drama than anything else I’ve witnessed in an athletics arena.

There were some tremendous battles with the javelin in the Eighties and Nineties, often involving Brits such as Tessa Sanderson, Fatima Whitbread and Steve Backley. I would enjoy watching the cameras follow the spear flying through the air and use my copious reserves of expertise (!) to guess how far it would go. Sadly for Backley it would never quite sail far enough.

Perhaps the most memorable field competitions were between the Russian pole vaulters Svetlana Feofanova and Yelena Isinbayeva in the 2000s. I forget whether it was in the 2004 or 2008 Olympics or a subsequent world championships but their duel to the finish was as electrifying as anything on the track. Thank goodness the BBC director stuck with it. The two women were at the time by far the best vaulters in the world, swapping world records consistently. I tended to support Feofanova, probably because she was the shorter and a fellow redhead. However, she appeared the moodier of the two and, when it mattered, tended to lose out to her great rival. For about five years, Isinbayeva ruled the roost and retired having set no fewer than 28 indoor or outdoor world records, and was one of those athletes who always demanded your attention.

While I often pledge my allegiance to the plucky also-rans or nearly-men and women, there is something special about watching undisputed masters of their event do their stuff. It’s true of many sports but probably athletics most of all. Before Isinbayeva, it was Sergey Bubka who was the Prince of the Pole (I made that one up); he was seemingly invincible for more than a decade, winning golds at each of the first six World champs either as part of the Soviet Union or Ukraine. His detractors criticised him for maximising his earnings by breaking world records a centimetre at a time, garnering WR bonuses at every event. He was one of the few field event stars to be true ‘box office’. Meet organisers may have needed to cough up extra cash but spectators and TV viewers like me would lap up the drama as he would plant the pole, leap and twist towards the bar. Would he dislodge it or clear once more? It was usually the latter. Sadly he seemed to suffer the curse of the five rings, taking only one Olympic crown, in 1988. However, his 35 world records are testament to his enduring supremacy.

Sprinters never seem to get on with each other. At least that’s how it comes across on screen. Maybe, as with boxers, it’s just showbiz hype, inventing hatred and aggression as a ruse to get the punters and, consequently, sponsors and broadcasters to splash the cash. Perhaps being a 100-metres runner is a more solitary experience, requiring mental strength to zone out of everyone else to focus. What I particularly like but watching field events is that competitors seem to generally like and support each other. Whether it’s big burly shot putters offering handshakes and hugs when someone produces a whopper, jumpers leading the audience handclaps for their opponents or those collective end-of event laps of honour by heptathletes or decathletes, there’s something life-affirming about sportsmen and women setting aside their intense rivalries to be decent human beings.

Javelin is one event where this always seems to happen. Even when the Czech thrower Jan Zelezny was taking the event to new heights – and lengths – the dozen men contesting championship or circuit finals seemed to get on, even when they all knew that, even when he seemed down and out, Zelezny was capable of producing something spectacular to grab victory. He wasn’t invincible in the manner of Moses or Bubka, but there was something inspirational in the way the mild-mannered Czech – tall but not disconcertingly muscular – went about his business so efficiently. Throughout the Nineties I willed Britain’s Steve Backley to go one better, even by a solitary centimetre, and claim that elusive global gold, but it never came. He did briefly hold the world record and regularly topped the podium in European and Commonwealth championships, but in the Worlds and Olympics it was usually Zelezny who emerged on top. 

Then there was Jonathan Edwards. He was British, fresh-faced and articulate, his event was one of my favourites - triple jump - and for several seasons he was one of the most thrilling athletes to watch. Though not as consistently dominant as those mentioned above, when he finally made his breakthrough at the age of 27, he made a difficult, very technical event look ridiculously simple. I shall never forget the World Championships in Gothenburg. In his first jump, he became the first man legally to break the 18 metres barrier. In the second, he went even further, to 18.29 metres. In each of his three sections Edwards looked absolutely perfect; he seemed to float over the runway, to defy gravity. In 2002 he held all four possible ‘major’ titles and retired the following year. Others have threatened his world record since but none have either surpassed it or come close to matching that free-flowing technique.

Sprints and Marathons

My earliest recollection of two runners involved in a breathtaking dash for the tape was the Mexico City women’s 400 metres final. Britain’s young blonde favourite, Lilian Board, was overhauled on the line by French rival Colette Besson, long dark hair flowing behind her, and I distinctly remember the excitement. I don’t recall being disappointed at the result; it had been the finish which thrilled me, not the name of the winner.  A year later, Board gained revenge in another tremendous climax, this time in the European Championships 4x400m relay.  The news of her cancer diagnosis the following year was headline news and I was as sad as anyone when she died in December 1970. She was only 22. I’ve only just discovered that Besson, too, fell to cancer, in 2005.

There have been many other absorbing relay finals over the years. As a means of concluding championships on a high, relays are nigh perfect, although they don’t necessarily guarantee close finishes. For more years than I care to remember, the Americans would spoil the occasion by taking dominance to new levels, especially the women. However, in men’s 4 by 4 races, the Soviet Union, Bahamas, Nigeria and Jamaica have done their bit to give me something to cheer. Nevertheless perhaps some of the most enthralling relays I can remember have involved the Brits.

There may have been closer finishes but for sheer edge-of-the-seat-scream-at-the-screen drama, few can match the 1991 World championships 4x400 metres and the 2004 Olympic sprint finals. The former, hosted by Tokyo, followed a feast of fast times aided by a super-duper track and almost certainly a pantechnicon full of steroids. Ben Johnson may have been banished following the 1988 Olympic disqualification but other drugs cheats like Carl Lewis and Dennis Mitchell had been allowed to continue, and Lewis duly broke the world 100m record. He was also involved in a tremendous battle for the long jump title, which was snatched from his grasp by Mike Powell, who had to overhaul Beamon’s ‘unbeatable’ world record to do so.

Lewis was also a member of the American men’s sprint quartet set a new world mark shortly before the 400 metre event drew down the curtain on the men’s events in the championships. The Yanks were hot favourites as usual but in Roger Black we had the individual silver medallist and three others who had the potential to see off the rest. Even commentator David Coleman was surprised to see Black lining up in the blocks on the opening leg instead of his normal role as ‘anchor’. It proved a master-stroke. Black, then Derek Redmond and John Regis held on to the Americans all the way to the final handover. Hurdler Kriss Akabusi stayed on Antonio Pettigrew’s shoulder until, on the last straight, somehow found the legs to overtake and breast the tape first. The look on Akabusi’s face (and that unforgettable laugh) was priceless, and the Americans seemed stunned. Hardly surprising, given it would be their only defeat in a twelve-year period. For that reason alone, those three minutes were pure sporting gold but for a British foursome to apply the coup de grace made it extra special.

Fast forward thirteen years to the Athens Olympics, and the Men’s 4x100 relay. Once again, the Yanks were expected to win but, despite Dwain Chambers being banned for life because of illegal performance-boosting drug intake and none of our sprint stars reaching an individual final, Britain had high hopes for silver. If only we could avoid another bungled baton change! Mind you, we’d skirted with another disqualification in the semis and then, spirits pumped by Kelly Holmes’ 1500m success, when the starter’s gun fired, Jason Gardener was too quick out of his blocks. These days we would have been shown the red flag and kicked out. In 2004, you had a second chance, and Britain took it. Luckily it all came together late that evening.

This time, it was the Americans who bodged a couple of changeovers. Gardener, Darren Campbell and Marlon Devonish were up there with USA and Nigeria but Maurice Greene would surely prevail on the last leg. He didn’t. In what proved to be his finest hour, 21 year-old Mark Lewis-Francis somehow held on to win by the thickness of a vest, or 0.01 seconds. Weeks later, I skived off work for an hour to watch the Olympic and Paralympic parade pass along Oxford Street, the highlight for me being the glistening golds and gleaming smiles being worn by the relay squad who had pulled off such a thrilling victory in Athens.

In more recent years, it has been the joyful Jamaicans, men and women, who have been the scourge of Team USA and the source of such delight for me. When Usain Bolt brought them home for a new world record in London, 2012, the whole world outside the States erupted with joy. More on Mr Bolt later…

It hasn’t all been about the relays, of course. I recall one Friday evening towards the end of the school year in July 1973 when I watched the shambling, shaggy-haired, moustachioed figure of David Bedford break the world 10,000 metres record at Crystal Palace. That was the first time I felt compelled to go straight outside and run around the close. At 12 years old, I’d no facial hair but for a few glorious minutes I felt like Britain’s new long distance superstar. For all his efforts, he never managed a global title and was eclipsed by Brendan Foster in the medals stakes. That record, too, has been eclipsed many times. Obliterated. By well over a minute! However, for three years, Bedford’s record stood proud.

In the past two decades, the rise to long-distance supremacy of African-born athletes has changed the world order completely, giving us new heroes like Mo Farah and the little Ethiopian maestro Haile Gebrselassie not only on the track but also on the streets. Until the first London Marathon was organised in 1981, I paid little attention to the grand-daddy of all distances In those days, when at university, I used to buy The Observer on Sundays and the ‘paper really went to town on the event. Founder and journalist Chris Brasher would set out training plans each week for the intrepid few who had booked a place and I would wonder what it would be like to have a go myself.

Of course, I decided that slogging around Billericay in the cold, wet winter months was too arduous a training regime so I’ve never ventured into the world of fartlek (I love that word – it’s a sequence of sprint-jog-sprint-jog), hitting ‘the wall’, being overtaken by a rhinoceros or donning a cape of silver foil. Instead, like just about every other athletic event, I would in the Eighties and Nineties resolve to get up a bit earlier than usual on the requisite April Sunday morning to enjoy the atmosphere on TV.

It’s not just London; there are many top city marathons taking place each year, from Berlin to New York, but for us Brits, London’s is the Marathon. It’s quaint to recall the moment when Dick Beardsley and Inge Simonsen linked hands to cross the line together in that first men’s elite race. Britain’s own, Joyce Smith, also won the women’s event that year, at the age of 43. We had some top-class marathon runners in the Eighties. Steve Jones’ winning time from 1985 endured as a British record for 33 years before being improved by Mo Farah in 2018.

The Marathon was also the first opportunity to see women long-distance runners in action. Until the Eighties, the fairer sex were deemed by the IOC and IAAF too fragile to participate in anything longer than 1500 metres but there was nothing weak and feeble about the Norwegian pair of Grete Waitz and Ingrid Kristiansen who won just about everything in that decade. A couple of times I made the trip up to Liverpool Street, joining the crowds near the Tower to cheer the elite and fund-raising so-called ‘fun’ runners. I remember Kristiansen looking remarkably small surrounded by male lanky beanpoles who struggled to keep pace with her. Boy, was she tough! She won world titles on track, streets and cross-country, and was also a Norwegian ski champion, no mean feat.

For me, the London Marathon no longer has sufficient appeal for me to sit and watch. Not since Paula Radcliffe’s heyday have I made any real effort to watch, perhaps hanging on towards midday in an attempt to pick out a friend or work colleague amidst the multi-coloured hordes negotiating the cobbles around the Cutty Sark or shuffling across Tower Bridge. I wouldn’t want to ’diss’ the event. It remains a magnet for athletes around the world, with enormous prize money to attract the big names from Kenya and Ethiopia and the cache for 40,000 ‘ordinary’ runners to put their bodies on the line, whether for pride or charity. I salute them all.

Running,Jumping, Throwing and Watching

Like most sports, I wasn’t built for athletics. Whether needing to run fast, jump high or hurl heavy objects long distances, I was pretty low down the queue. At primary school I would dread Sports Day. This was the one day in the calendar when children could show off in public and in particular to their parents. Great, if you could sprint or balance a mean beanbag. However, if like me your main contribution to your ‘house’ was housepoints gleaned from maths tests or story writing, then your achievements were tucked away in private. The only stage that mattered would be the school field one balmy afternoon in June or July, and it was one from which I was usually either absent or cowering amidst the supporting cast.

In those days, there were no efforts to democratise Sports Day, to ensure everybody ‘won’ something. It was strictly meritocratic. One year, when I was seven or eight, I had a really great chance of success. In the wheelbarrow race, I had the sturdy David Burcham to hold my legs and in practice we were clearly the pair to beat. However, on the big occasion his grip faltered and the favourites were beaten. It still rankles that, in my entire school career, primary and secondary, my sole Sports Day certificate was that third place in the wheelbarrow race. For some reason, I’ve never included it in my CV.

In the fourth year at Mayflower Comprehensive, I decided to take extreme and calculating measures. What event would be so unpopular that I could almost guarantee a top three finish? Ah, triple jump! So what if I couldn’t sprint; I knew the basic technique so, provided I didn’t ‘foul’, glory must surely be mine. OK, so the event wasn’t scheduled for Sports Day proper but beggars couldn’t be choosers. When I turned up at the pit one cool summer lunchtime, imagine my disappointment when I found that I was one of four competitors. Four! I would have to hop, step and jump further than someone else to finally achieve my long-held ambition. Needless to say, I failed. I barely reached the sand. I had to be satisfied with nine ‘A’ grade O levels but I’d happily have sacrificed one of those ‘A’s for an athletics certificate bearing my name. Such is life…..

For all my lack of personal prowess, I was always a keen viewer of TV athletics broadcasts. My earliest memory is of the 1968 Olympics, when David Hemery broke the 400 metres hurdles world record, Bob Beamon produced an almost impossible long jump distance and Dick Fosbury changed the high jump forever, although not at school, where attempting the ‘Fosbury Flop’ would result in at best a severe neck injury. ‘Health and safety’ was not a term bandied about in the sixties but I didn’t need a Government Act to tell me that landing head first in an inch of damp sand was not recommended practice. In any case, I never bothered even trying to ‘scissor jump over the bar. My mantra was: queue with the others, deliberately knock it off, shrug and wait for something I could at least attempt without embarrassment. Mr, Fosbury, you can keep your event.

I shall be returning to the Olympic Games in a separate chapter but throughout my childhood and indeed much of my adult life, Athletics provided an important part of my summer viewing. The BBC devoted countless hours to the sport, broadcasting every ‘meet’ or championships that mattered, from the wholly domestic to the multinational ones lasting a weekend or entire week. It wasn’t only during the summer either. I remember watching Grandstand’s coverage of the national indoor ‘champs’ in the late winter. I was enthralled by the thump-thump-thump of athletes pounding their feet around the banked bends and, in the 60 metre sprints, crashing into and, if I was really lucky, somersaulting over, the padded barriers at the end of the straight. It was always held at RAF Cosford. I never questioned why it had to be held in a big, echoing barn at an air force base somewhere in the Midlands. It was just the way it was.

Year after year, I would know many of the ‘3As’ title holders and the winner of the Emsley Carr Mile. It all sounds quaint now. What’s a ‘mile’?! The ‘3As’ referred to the AAA, short for the UK governing body, Amateur Athletics Association. Yes, it was an entirely amateur sport. In theory, no participant could accept appearance or prize money, a situation which continued to exist at the Olympics until the IOC accepted the inevitable and ripped up the rule book in time for the 1992 Games.

I remember watching the BBC multi-sport game show ‘Superstars’ in the Seventies. Athletes, especially hurdlers and pole vaulters, were often excellent all-rounders. One year, John Sherwood, who took bronze behind Hemery in Mexico, won the UK ‘Superstars’ final. To accept the title and prize, however paltry, he had to renounce his amateur status and retire from competitive athletics. Back then, it wasn’t a decision to take lightly.

Of course, for many people, amateurism was really ‘shamateurism’. The best athletes were paid ‘under the counter’ or by more sophisticated subterfuge. The Soviet Bloc competitors were all officially eligible thanks to a degree of government support. So too, were the top Americans. It’s just that they couldn’t admit it. Nobody believed the likes of Carl Lewis or Flo-Jo were paid no fees to run anywhere in the world and I’m sure the same was true of Britain’s biggest stars like Daley Thompson or Linford Christie.

As a spectator, it didn’t really matter. As long as the best competed against each other, who cared? Why should only public schoolboys and girls, their training and travel costs subsidised by rich parents, be able to win medals? It also didn’t bother me that I was a useless athlete; I could still appreciate the drama of the sport as television entertainment. Some of my favourite all-time sporting memories have involved extraordinary races, momentous duels in field events, records being smashed, and legendary rivalries played out for my entertainment.

Jolly Boating Weather!

As anybody who knows me will confirm, water and I don’t easily mix. While you’d never catch me swimming, feathering an oar’s blade or trimming a mainsail, I certainly have been found cheering other people in a boat from a settee or riverbank.

It probably started in the Sixties with the University Boat Race, a staple BBC outside broadcast from the Thames each March or April. I’m not sure whether I just preferred the name, or light blue to dark, but I supported Cambridge as a child and have continued ever since. Back then, the Light Blues had established a substantial lead in victories, although the margin has been all but wiped out in the twenty-first century. I rarely watch it now, but I used to love the build-up, the potential of a controversial clash of oars approaching the first bend and the climactic dunking of the victorious cox but, lets face it, if one crew was well ahead on the Surrey side, the race was almost always dead and buried as a spectator sport.

In the Nineties I made the trip up to London a couple of times on Race Day, once to Putney with friends and then a few years later to the Mortlake finish. On each occasion, the atmosphere was more memorable than the actual rowing, although the former stands out because a thundery deluge delayed the start as both crews took temporary refuge beneath Putney Bridge. We, on the other hand, got soaked. The experience did demonstrate one fact that TV cameras never showed, that the boats sit incredibly low in the water. From the towpath, they are almost invisible.

The sight of my Cambridge Eight floundering helplessly in the waves in 1978 left an indelible memory and I admit I quite fancied the Oxford cox of ’83. Well, Sue Brown was the first woman ever to compete. That innovation was extremely welcome but the rapid shift towards super-heavy oarsmen, specifically American and German internationals qualifying as postgrads, left a sour taste. It all reached a nadir in 2019. Much as I welcomed Cambridge’s victory, I did feel sorry for genuine undergraduate student rowers kicked out to make room for the 48 year-old ex-Olympic champion James Cracknell. Credit to him for putting in the massive effort needed to be in peak racing condition at that age, but to me it made a mockery of the amateur Boat Race tradition.

Nineteen years earlier, Cracknell had featured in probably the most hotly anticipated rowing competition ever, at least where we Brits are concerned. That was the Coxless Fours at the Sydney Olympics. These days, rowing has become an endless seam of gold to be mined by Team GB - men and women - but I think the first medallists I was aware of were Chris Baillieu and Mike Hart, who won silver in the double sculls at Montreal in ’76. In the Eighties, we had a new double act to celebrate: Holmes and Redgrave. At the 1984 Games, they also sat in the engine room of our Coxed Fours who so stunningly overhauled the USA to win gold in LA. It was a victory which laid the foundation for so much regatta success for British crews ever since.

By the Nineties Andy Holmes had bowed out and Steve Redgrave had a new partner in the Pairs. Could the Old Etonian Matthew Pinsent keep the successes flowing? You bet! By 2000 we were all willing Redgrave to achieve his fifth gold in consecutive Olympics, this time assisted by Redgrave, Cracknell and Tim Foster. I vividly recall being glued to the screen up to almost midnight cheering on the British crews. No disrespect to the Eights, but it was the Coxless Fours’ triumph which most gladdened the heart, leaving me almost as breathless as the exhausted oarsmen. The man from Henley had retired – permanently this time – yet amazingly, at 2019 we have won the same event at every subsequent Olympics.

For all Sir Steve’s medal collection, perhaps the most iconic image of British Olympic rowing came on the podium at Lake Banyoles in 1992. I’d urged on Greg and Jonny Searle during the coxed pairs final (“They’ve beaten the Abbagnales!”) but it was the sight of little cox Garry Herbert bawling his eyes out alongside the tall brothers which proved even more emotional. That ecstatic tearful cox has now become the ecstatic, tearful voice of rowing, commentating on all those victories to Rio and hopefully beyond.

I’ve actually been on a boat ride on the same lake, and also the famous regatta venue of the lovely Lake Lucerne. However the only leading location on the sport’s circuit where I have actually rowed is at Lake Bled, Slovenia. No medals for the leisurely hour of gentle paddling with Mum and Dad astern, but I could but dream. Of course I’ve taken my turn at the oars at all sorts of places over the years, from Billericay’s Lake Meadows and the River Stour at Flatford Mill to Seefeld, Austria. Provided it’s not too hot or choppy, there are no more agreeable activities on water

There’s no way on Earth I can be enticed into a canoe but the slalom events make exciting viewing, especially when a Brit leads the way, as in Rio. As for yachting, I feel seasick just looking at Ben Ainslie. At least being an island nation has ensured Britain has been in the medal mix for as long as I can remember. No other country has scooped more Olympic golds. However, why does the IOC insist on having such dull disciplines?. Why not ditch the sails and introduce powerboat racing? Then we could at least work out who’s winning. And where are the pedalos? That would make the Olympic watersports less expensive, more inclusive and closer to the viewing public!

I guess part of the traditional appeal of sailing is that people around the world have been pottering about on boats for centuries. The classes have been changed to reflect developments in taste and technology, as well as thwarting Britain’s chances of success in favour of the Americans, not that I’m bitter or anything. While I don’t rate yachting as a spectator sport, I can at least appreciate the courage needed to battle the elements and spit in the eye of danger. Like swimming and water polo, I limit my exposure to that glorious festival of sport, the Olympic Games.

My Most Memorable Tennis matches

One certainty in a top-level tennis match is that you will definitely get some fantastic shots, ding-dong rallies and moments of heart-stopping tension. It’s what elevates the sport above most others. However, as in football, rugby, golf or whatever, a few will linger longer in the memory. Most are Wimbledon finals, the magical moments amplified by the association with the trophy-lifting glory at the end. There have been some real humdingers, men’s marathon five-setters and rollercoaster women’s three-setters but often the shorter ones are more memorable for the clashes in style and personality or in the historical significance of the result.

I recall the Men’s Singles showdown in 1974 between 21 year-old Jimmy Connors and the Aussie veteran old enough to be his dad, Ken Rosewall. In these times of Federer, Serena and Martina defying the ageing process, such an achievement would barely register but in the early Seventies it was astonishing. At the time I didn’t know who to support.  Connors was the brash youngster tearing up trees around the world with his all-action style while the popular Rosewall, at 39 despite two decades at the top spanning amateur and pro eras, had never won Wimbledon. They weren’t just chalk and cheese; it was like Connors was playing in colour against Rosewall in black-and-white. Well, in our household, all TV was in monochrome, but you get the picture!

Sadly, the short, slight Australian was no match for his youthful opponent and I found myself warming to underdog Rosewall as the game wore on. He won a mere six games. And yet it wasn’t quite a final hurrah. Amazingly, the two met again shortly afterwards at the US Open, also played on grass, but the winning margin was even greater, as Connors triumphed 6-1, 6-0, 6-1. The baton had been well and truly passed to the new generation. There was a slight hiccup the following summer when fellow American Arthur Ashe, then 31, upset the odds to great acclaim in a four-setter I also remember well. 

During Bjorn Borg’s five-year tenure at Wimbledon, classics were in short supply. His 1977 semi aganst Vitas Gerulaitis was an exception but I didn’t see it, presumably at school. The Swede’s 1980 defeat of John McEnroe is also held up as an all-time great but I was probably too disappointed in the outcome. I have fonder memories of the 1981 final in which McEnroe triumphantly ended Borg’s run with an emphatic volley.

Another inter-generational encounter which sticks in the mind occurred in 2001. Pete Sampras had won 31 consecutive matches and was seeking a record-breaking eighth Wimbledon singles title. In the fourth round he faced the 19 year-old number 15 seed from Switzerland by the name of Roger Federer. After five tight sets, Pistol Pete ran out of bullets and we all sat up and took notice of the long-haired, chubby-faced Swiss bloke with a broad white headscarf. Commentating, John McEnroe predicted he’d become the greatest ever. He wasn’t wrong.

Federer had to wait for his maiden Grand Slam because Britain’s Tim Henman edged him in the quarters. Tim’s next match was another one for my personal record books. Drawn against the wild card Goran Ivanisevic, the path was surely clear for the Brit to meet his Wimbledon destiny. In the event, rain delays and postponements, allied to the former finalist’s mental strength to achieve his own ambition, combined to send the Croat through after five gruelling sets.

That wasn’t a shock but of course we all love an unexpected ousting of a leading seed by a rank outsider. Most take place during working (or school) hours but that didn’t prevent me being distracted by the start of Paradorn Srichaphan’s defeat of reigning champion Andre Agassi in the second round of Wimbledon 2002, the conclusion of which I watched after the evening commute home. More recently, when Rafa Nadal was knocked out by the dramatically dreadlocked Dustin Brown I marvelled at the audacity and verve of the Jamaican-born German.

I don’t normally cheer for the Brits but I found myself supporting Heather Watson when I switched channels to see her close in on beating the all-conquering Serena Williams in 2015. Spurred on by a fiercely partisan and often highly disrespectful Centre Court crowd, the 23 year-old actually served for the match only for the top seed to reel off the last three games and proceed to win the whole tournament.

Many years previously I enjoyed watching the graceful young Evonne Goolagong beating the legendary Margaret Court in 71 and, again, nine years later when the now-married Evonne Cawley beat Turnbull and Austin before recapturing the title against Chris Evert Lloyd. I rarely watched the women’s final because until 1982 they were scheduled for the Friday, but in 1980 I was home from university. In 2004 I was also available to applaud the 17 year-old Maria Sharapova’s momentous thwarting of Serena Williams. This was before the humble lissom-limbed Russian became an annoying American gruntaholic, much like her opponent.

A couple of epic Wimbledon finals from the Nineties also stand out, each involving Steffi Graf. The first was the German’s nailbiter against Jana Novotna in ’93 then, two years later she survived another three-setter against the Czech before being pushed all the way in the final by the tenacious Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario. 

The men have also produced some lengthy classics. I’ve already mentioned the Pasarell-Gonzales marathon from ’69, up there (almost!) with the Apollo 11 mission to the moon just a few weeks later. In those days, tennis was still too professional to be granted Olympic status but by 2016 the sport had become a popular part of the Games. I admit I haven’t watched much of the competition but did catch bits of a wonderful contest between champion Andy Murray and the likeable but injury-prone Argentine Juan Martin del Potro. The latter had lost a gruelling five-setter versus Federer in London four years earlier and had eliminated Djokovic in the first round in Rio. In the final, the Brazilian heat played a part and poor del Potro could hardly lift his racket at the end. A great game played in an even greater spirit.

Back to Wimbledon and in 2010, an unheralded first-round tie turned into a chapter of Grand Slam history that can never, ever be surpassed. It wasn’t tremendous tennis, but it certainly captured the imagination of all of us who tuned in, as enthralling as any 3 nights-a-week TV soap opera. It pitched the tall American 23^rd seed, John Isner against the French qualifier and one-time Wimbledon junior champion Nicolas Mahut, neither of whom I’d heard of at the time. I watched for ages on the second evening, struggling to comprehend how Mahut refused to succumb to the Isner serve before bad light stopped play at 58-all. After more than eleven hours, Isner finally broke through on the Thursday afternoon to win 70-68 in the fifth. Not only were both players physical wrecks but an IBM technician had been drafted in to enable the electronic scoreboards to keep up with the games tally! Unbelievable. Since then, Isner has scooped numerous ATP titles helped by his awesome ace count and has participated in quite a few other five-setters. Mahut never made it in singles but has become one of the most accomplished doubles exponents on the tour.

Nowhere near as long but possibly even more absorbing was the so-called Clash of the Champions in 1992. Ex-winner Pat Cash was a wild card entry and an injury-affected John McEnroe out of the seedings but it was a tasty second round match-up and it delivered in spades. Amazingly, Mac went all the way to the semi-finals where he bowed out to Agassi and sadly never played the tournament again.

McEnroe had played many grudge matches against Jimmy Connors around the world. I had bad memories of his loss at Wimbledon in 1982 but they were eclipsed by McEnroe’s straightforward revenge two years later. Games involving players who make no secret of mutual hatred are often highly attractive. This year’s second rounder reuniting third seed Rafael Nadal and the dashing but deeply unpleasant Nick Kyrgios provided fireworks galore and I’ve never previously seen Nadal so pumped up in victory so early in the tournament.

Over the years there have been countless games which have been memorable for others but had passed me by. Ah, if only I had stayed at home last weekend to witness Simona Halep’s comprehensive slaying of Serena!  Fortunately I was persuaded to watch Roger Federer’s final against Nadal back in 2008 and found it impossible to leave before the end. Including rain delays the match spanned more than seven hours, with actual play lasting almost five. But this wasn’t just about the duration; it was the sheer mesmeric quality of tennis both players produced. My household was predominantly in the Spaniard’s camp, which made Federer’s eventual defeat, 9-7 in the fifth, even harder to take but at least I can say I watched the drama unfold well into the evening, a true classic.

Tennis: Doubles Delights

Doubles tennis doesn’t get the credit it deserves, at least on the broadcast media, in today’s obsession with the singles specialists. It wasn’t always so. As a teenager, I’d look forward to watching live coverage of the pairs at Wimbledon rat-a-tatting volleys in lengthening shadows after tea and homework, even more so than the big-money duels taking place earlier in the day.

In 2019, it would appear that doubles, whether men’s, women’s or mixed, only got a look-in if at least one of the participants was a Murray or someone else with a Union Flag appended to their name. I became heartily sick of the whole Serandy - or is it Andena? - partnership farrago, when there are so many other brilliant pairs in action. It’s not just about the relegation of competition which doesn’t involve loads of zeroes in the prize pot. After all, the winners of the men’s and women’s events get to share more than half a million quid. Not in the Singles stratosphere, but hardly a bag of peanuts.

Anyone who has played tennis will have enjoyed doubles for the social value. By and large I found it fun to play with and against different partners in my tennis club or amongst friends, although in terms of competitive club matches I tended to prefer singles, as I felt responsible for my own destiny and I couldn’t muck it up for anybody else. However, it was good to mix it up a bit, and there’s nothing more satisfying than standing at the net to punch away a point-winning volley!

The current professional tours see little of the old-school blending of formats. Outside the Davis or Fed Cups, the Olympics or a few exhibition matches, I don’t know when the likes of Federer, Nadal or Djokovic last played competitive doubles. It’s simply not worth their while. That leaves some of the less familiar names to dominate the separate doubles tournaments, and I’m sure I’m not alone in trying to put those names to faces each summer at Wimbledon. It doesn’t help when, as already stated, even the TV cameras at SW19 swerve to avoid them.

Back in the day, the top singles players tended to be doubles winners, too, but they seemed to play with a sense of fun. With precious little money to play for, I guess such clashes would inevitably revolve around honour and enjoyment. Furthermore, when John Newcombe and Tony Roche met, say, Rod Laver and Roy Emerson across the net, it must have felt like one of those Saturday afternoon knockabouts, even if a Grand Slam title was at stake.

I think Newcombe and Roche won about a dozen Grand Slams together and several more with separate partners. Up to the late Seventies they were more important to my Wimbledon viewing than the likes of Connors, Borg or Nastase but they were not alone. That midsummer fortnight also brought us the white cap of Frew McMillan in partnership with Bob Hewitt, not to mention Billie-Jean King and Rosie Casals bringing an always watchable blend of touch and power to women’s doubles.

The Aussie production line was maintained through Case and Masters, McNamara and McNamee then in the Nineties by the incomparable ‘Woodies’, Mark Woodforde and Todd Woodbridge. They were the classic combination of left- and right-handers and, thanks to their bright demeanours, brought a sense of entertainment beyond mere tennis skills. I never picked up the same happy vibe when the American Bryan brothers were grabbing eighteen Grand Slams between 2003 and 2014. They represent a completely different era, the one where partners feel obliged to ‘finger-slide’ (not even a fist-bump!) each other after every point, won or lost, and conduct all their tactical conversations behind the shield of a ball It all seems so – well – professional, but of course that’s because doubles is a serious business.

There were many other enduring American partnerships to savour in my formative years. Smith and Lutz, Gottfried and Ramirez, Flach and Seguso, Navratilova and Shriver all flew the Stars and Stripes with great aplomb for many years, although my favourite duo has to be John McEnroe and Peter Fleming. When once asked who was the best doubles pairing, Fleming repled: “McEnroe and anyone”. If Mac was a superb singles player, he was even better at doubles, so devastating was his knowledge of angles and touch on the volley. A true genius.

McEnroe’s contemporary and fellow leftie Martina Navratilova was another supreme doubles player, whether paired with King, Evert, Stove, Mandlikova or Shriver, while Jonas Bjorkman was the best and most enduring of a string of Swedish doubles stars. Jana Novotna was another whose game was tailor-made for doubles, and she scooped sixteen women’s or mixed Grand Slams in her stellar career.

However, even Jana was outdone in the Nineties by Natasha Zvereva. A product of the Soviet Union, I used to support her partnership with Ludmila Savchenko, partly because the USSR was, despite the arrival of Gorbachev, glasnost and perestroika, still supposed to be our enemy. They made an unlikely pairing but were brilliant to watch. Their match-up didn’t survive the Soviet break-up, but it was Zvereva who, alongside Gigi Fernandez, won nine out of ten consecutive Grand Slam titles in 1992-94.  I don’t know why, but the Belarussian is possibly my fave women’s doubles player of all time.

She must be pushed hard by Martina Hingis. In her first, teenage, incarnation around the turn of the millennium, she claimed doubles titles with six different partners then, after her comeback, formed a formidable pairing with Sania Mirza. Neither were muscular powerhouses but were so aesthetically pleasing to watch. What is it about Indians and doubles? Vijay and Anand Amritraj introduced some Asian elegance in the Seventies while in the new century, Leander Paes – like Savchenko-Neiland not blessed with the standard tennis player physique - has proved one of the finest on the circuit and the go-to partner for any title-hungry female. His ten mixed doubles Grand Slam trophies span sixteen years and counting. He won three with Hingis in 2011 alone when pushing forty but it is his successes with the 47 year-old Navratilova in Melbourne and Wimbledon in 2003 for which he may be most fondly remembered.

Excluding the comedy senior matches involving Mansour Bahrami and Henri Leconte, there is one game which above all others epitomised everything I once enjoyed about mixed doubles in the Seventies - and yet it happened in 2007. I’m talking about the summer when the scratch pairing of Jamie Murray and Jelena Jankovic somehow harnessed their engaging bonhomie to not only reach the Wimbledon final but to actually win the title. It was such a throwback to a different era. They were having fun, and it was infectious; sport at its most life-affirming.

Tennis: The Men - the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

When I first began following tennis, all the stars were came ready-made. The likes of John Newcombe, Ilie Nastase, Billie-Jean King et al had all been plying their trade for several years. Newcombe was my first real favourite. I’m not precisely sure why he stood out, but I liked the way he actually seemed to enjoy playing the game. A brilliant volleyer, a nifty net-leaper after his victories, the Aussie always seemed to have a cheeky or rueful smile lurking beneath that drooping moustache.

Therefore I guess it was a sharp shock to the system when the scowly-faced Jimmy Connors rocked up at Wimbledon as the hottest ticket in town. With his pudding bowl haircut, staccato grunt and fierce double-handed strokes, the 21 year-old American represented a seismic shift in the tennis establishment. Amidst all the tour power struggles and politics, the Seventies had finally arrived.

As the professional era brought cash flooding into the sport, like pop stars its protagonists appeared to become ever more miserable. Ivan Lendl was the ultimate example. In his Eighties pomp the US-based Czech harvested titles by the dozen earning millions in the process, yet I can’t recall him ever with a smile on his face. Perhaps that’s because he never won Wimbledon, a fact with which he was confronted annually on these shores. His retort one year was that the SW turf should be ripped up, because grass was suitable only for golf.

Of course professional sport is a serious business. Success breeds not only confidence but also a sustained mini-economy of agents, sponsors, etc. If you need to eschew public displays of positive emotion in order to achieve that success, so be it. Through the Eighties and Nineties, Wimbledon continued to allow the Big Serve to flourish. Edberg, Stich, Krajicek and the mighty Pete Sampras all became champions thanks to a scorching first serve and a readiness to add further pressure by galloping to the net. If the opponent had the temerity to make a return, the point could still be seized with a climactic volley.

Since grass tournaments became exiled to just a few weeks in June, and those remaining offered slower, more bouncy conditions, serve-and-volley has more or less disappeared, even at Wimbledon. Rusedski, Roddick, Karlovic, Ivanisevic and – yes – Tim Henman resembled mere throwbacks in the twenty-first century and, while there are plenty of two-metre beanpoles in the world top twenty (Isner, Anderson Cilic) they seem content to sit on the baseline and, if their 140mph rockets come back over the net, indulge in rallies of thunderous groundstrokes. Over the years, some of the greatest gladiatorial rivalries I watched involved a server and returner. Think McEnroe v Borg, Sampras v Agassi and, in the women’s game, Navratilova v Evert. Even if I disliked one of the protagonists, I couldn’t deny they produced some intriguing encounters.

I confess I never liked Andre Agassi. Whilst he slowly matured from long-haired enfant terrible who once boycotted Wimbledon for its insistence on white clothing to chilled-out bald legend, I didn’t find him pleasant to watch. His baseline game was just as boring to me as the Sampras serve. Similarly, I couldn’t fully embrace the brilliance of Bjorn Borg. At Roland Garros and Wimbledon, he was a supreme winning machine, not coached but programmed. Maybe he’d still be winning Grand Slams now had he not taken the astonishing decision to retire with burnout at just 26.

Some players enjoy mercurial rises and equally fast falls. One of my favourites was Paradorn Srichaphan. As my girlfriend at the time was Thai, my attention was inevitably drawn to the man from Khon Kaen when he was drawn in the second round against third seed Agassi at Wimbledon in 2002. I recall following part of the match at my office desk, unable to hold back my emotions as he outplayed the American. He won five titles, reaching nine in the rankings but never made a Grand Slam quarter-final. His traditional Thai ‘wai’ greeting to the crowd was always humbling to witness and it’s a shame that fame went to his head a bit in the late Noughties to the detriment of his tennis.

Srichapan was no grass specialist, more a hard-court man. For decades, Wimbledon seemed to exist as a weird bubble, a million miles from the mainstream tennis world occupied by a host of European and Latin American claycourt specialists who rarely lasted into the second week at Wimbledon: Wilander, Kuerten, Bruguera, Muster, Moya, Corretja, Gomez, Ferrero, etc, etc. And who remembers the last man to win at Roland Garros before the Rafael Nadal era? Gaston Gaudio!

Sweden’s Mats Wilander first burst onto the scene at just 17, winning the French Open as an unseeded player. While I’ve seen many female players take the world by storm in their teens – ‘Ice Queen’ Chris Evert, Tracy Austin, Maria Sharapova or the current Centre Court sensation ‘Coco’ Gauff – the blokes tend to mature a bit later. One exception was a certain ginger-haired giant from Germany, Boris Becker. In 1984 he briefly wowed the outside court crowds as a sixteen year-old qualifier then the following year blew us all away with his athleticism and sheer youthful exuberance. He was the youngest ever and the first unseeded (there were only 16 seeds back then) Gentlemen’s Singles Wimbledon champion and we all loved him. 

After trading titles with Edberg for several years, ‘Boom-Boom’ Becker lost his cheery demeanour and I would support even Sampras against him. He would become as sullen as Lendl, another in the train of Wimbledon bad boys stretching from Connors to Kyrgios. Yet there can be a fine line between love and hate in that distant relationship between sport superstar and yours truly viewing on TV.

At first, Connors was a breath of fresh air before lapsing into unpleasant whinger. Jeff Tarango was a disqualification waiting to happen, Canadian-turned-Brit Greg Rusedski barely hid a nasty temper behind the matey grin and current ‘bad boy’ Nick Kyrgios frustratingly combines outrageously brilliant shots with outrageously disgraceful behaviour. In my opinion, the Aussie’s lack of respect for fellow players, officials, everybody really, makes him not good, bad but downright ugly.

The first ‘personality’ player I recall supporting was the Romanian llie Nastase. His occasional outbursts earned him the unwanted epithet ‘Nasty’ but his exquisite touch with the racket and frequent clowning around with spectators made him a perennial favourite of mine. Two decades later, nobody cheered more than me when Croat Goran Ivanisevic overcame injury, three finals defeats and a short fuse to surprisingly clinch the Wimbledon crown in 2001.

However, I have yet to mention my all-time favourite player, who could be good, bad and ugly, often in the same match! I’m talking, of course about John McEnroe. I was bitterly disappointed when he lost to Borg in the classic 1980 Wimbledon final but delighted when the super Swede was finally dislodged a year later. From then on, Mac rivalled Viv Richards as my all-time sporting hero. Don’t get me wrong; I’d despair at his snarling arguments with umpires and line judges, urging him to shut up and get on with winning the game. And winning was one of his most appealing traits. When focussing on tennis I don’t think there’s been anyone bar perhaps Roger Federer more pleasurable to watch. His lengthy wind-up serve may not have been 140mph but it was almost unreadable. Possessed with exquisite volleying skills and sublime touch, he was also one of the greatest doubles players who ever lived. In 1984 he was in outstanding form and his total demolition of great rival Jimmy Connors at Wimbledon was awe-inspiring. At 60, he also ranks as the most brilliantly witty and acerbic commentator on TV.

Supermac didn’t have everything his own way and never won the Aussie or French Slams. However, these days, the big names can compete on all surfaces. We are probably now living in one of the greatest oligopolies in tennis history, as Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and occasionally our own Andy Murray have enjoyed a near-stranglehold on the major titles for well over a decade. They really have taken tennis to new heights, displaying incredible footwork, stamina, athleticism and mental strength. All of them have suffered injuries which for anyone else would have prefaced an irreversible slide towards retirement, but they seem to come back almost stronger than ever.  Nadal has made the European clay courts his personal empire while Federer and Djokovic have been, and still remain, fierce competitors and engaging personalities of the highest order.

But I hope these thirty-somethings do eventually let someone else get a look-in. The likes of Berdych, Wawrinka, Del Potro and Thiem have had to settle for scraps for too long. For all the genius of Roger, Rafa and Novak I feel that men’s tennis is crying out for another Becker or McEnroe, someone to play with superlative steel, skill and a smile.