June 1986: Features That Maradona Goal v England

Hello again. We arrive at June 1986 which features that Maradona goal v England. June 1986 saw the “Which one?” you cry. “Well, both of ‘em,” I answer.

There’s also (my) dereliction of duty – going to watch cricket on a Sunday night when I should have been revising! Then, on the same day, staying up to watch the World Cup in the wee small hours before sleeping in on the Monday and missing the bus to get to school for my exam.

And that’s just the first and second of June… look out also for mention of the 80s phenomenon of ‘video-minding’; also, the phenomenon of the ages – England being crap at cricket; and a date for the ages, the day I rented the video of Police Academy. It was the first one, a genuinely humorous piece of work, with one or two scenes which made me… lecterns in conference halls… say no more ?

But the biggest mention goes to the World Cup. This is my favourite one of all. The freedoms that I was enjoying for the first time, you know, deciding to stay up beyond midnight to watch games; or the guilty pleasure of sitting in the living room, curtains drawn to watch a recorded game from the night before when I’d actually been sent up to bed. They were great, my mum and dad, gave me just enough rope…

Sunday 1 June 1986

I went with Dad to Derby to watch Derbyshire versus Essex in the Sunday League.

This was a rain-affected game reduced to 30 overs per side (instead of 40) in which Essex hammered the hosts, winning by 8 wickets. I think I’m right in saying that Graham Gooch hit one ball so far out of the ground that cars were at Risk in the car park – in the event he made an unbeaten 50.

Remember, I was supposed to be revising, but hey what the heck!?

In the evening, I watched France defeat Canada in Group C by a single goal – I think that it was scored by Jean-Pierre Papin. I, therefore, had a late night, before the start of my ‘O’ Levels proper. Tomorrow would be Geography paper 1.

Monday 2 June 1986

Well, well, well. Surprise surprise!

The totally predictable smacked me right between the eyes. After staying up late to watch the football last night, I managed to get up so late that I missed the bus to get to school for my Geography exam). Fortunately, I had plenty of time and my bicycle was in good working order, so off I toddled with my new permed mullet streaming out behind me like the Red Baron’s silk scarf.

I rated the exam as being “not easy, but not extremely difficult – 50% – easy!” I also made a note that I was trying to get a cricket XI together to play Will’s team.

Tuesday 3 June 1986

An English Language exam today, in the morning.

One word, “easy.”

I stayed up late to watch England lose 1-0 to a Carlos Manuel goal for Portugal. As I noted, “CRAP – England are shit…” I wasn’t impressed.

To be fair, England did create enough chances to have won the game comfortably. As it was, Kenny Sansom’s error allowed Diamantino to cross for Carlos Manuel to lift the ball into the England net from three yards.

Wednesday 4 June 1986

Another day, another exam.

This time French, which was “quite a good paper – easy grammar and vocab.” I noted that there was now only one more French exam left – listening and reading. “Hope I get lucky.”

The evening, well 11 pm ko, was Scotland versus Denmark. Denmark won the game 1-0, I don’t remember a great deal about it, but my diary entry does say that the Scots “should perhaps have won” the game.

Thursday 5 June 1986

No exam today! Fantastic!

I didn’t do an awful lot save having a football fest. I watched Argentina versus Italy in a 1-1 draw and later on France and the USSR played out the same scoreline. Another late night then…

Friday 6 June 1986

Another exam today – Physics.

A “fair paper” being my honest assessment. It wasn’t hard knowledge in it – I knew most of the stuff and I rated my marks on each part as A – 30/40; B – 30/50; C – 30/50. Question mark!

In the evening, England managed a patchy 0-0 draw with Morocco. This was the game in which Captain Courageous (sic), Bryan Robson went off with a damaged shoulder, to be replaced by Steve Hodge and we then saw his replacement as skipper, Ray Wilkins, sent off just before halftime for throwing the ball at the referee.

And he was always thought of as an intelligent footballer! It was funny… almost as funny as the time that he was heard quite clearly screaming at a ball boy, ‘oi, give us that facking ball back…’ (It may have been the same game, and I may also be completely off radar about the incident…)

I bought two singles today (or my mum was delegated). First up, the wondrous Sledgehammer by Peter Gabriel on 7”. I always had the parent album by Peter Gabriel, So, on my list of purchases to make, but alas I never did get around to it.

My other purchase, on 12”, was the equally cool Vienna Calling by the Austrian, Falco.

Saturday 7 June 1986

Having devoted the available space to a rant about last night’s England game, there was only space for one word about today – “Boring!”

Sunday 8 June 1986

After missing last week, I did the paper money collection again today.

I also played football in the playing field with Mal and Charlie. In the world cup, Denmark knocked six past Uruguay with only one in reply.

So far in their group of death, the Danes had a record of 2 wins from 2 games. Earlier in the group E, West Germany had beaten Scotland 2-1 after Gordon Strachan had given the Scots the lead in Querétaro.

You’ll all remember the (stunted wee) chap miming an attempt to climb over the advertising hoarding, n’est pas?

Monday 9 June 1986

“Nice day today. Quite windy.”

In the cricket, England finished their second innings 180 all out at the end of the fourth day of the first test at Lord’s, in their 3-match series against India. This meant that they had a slim lead of 133 going into the final day.

In world cup football, France demolished Hungary by 3 goals to nil (“Frogs-brilliant”). In the same group, the Soviets defeated Canada 2-0. This meant both France and the USSR finished on 5 points to claim the two qualifying places in the group.

I went to bed early as tomorrow; I had two exams:

Chemistry in the morning, followed in the afternoon by Map Reading and Great Britain in Geography.

Tuesday 10 June 1986

Chemistry was “not [a] bad exam – not very hard” and Geography “was quite easy.”

Nerd alert! You may want to look away now, but I still recall that the OS map that we were asked questions on covered the area around Swanage on the Dorset coast.

In the world cup, I watched Italy narrowly defeat South Korea by three goals to two.

At Lord’s India duly polished off the runs they needed to win by 5 wickets.

Wednesday 11 June 1986

Another exam today, this time Mathematics.

Fortunately, it “was not hard” and I gave myself 42/55 and 26/45 for the two parts.

In the evening kick-off, England needed a win in their final group game against Poland at the Estadio Tecnológico, Monterrey.

“Will they win?” Well, yes, they did. Gary Lineker proved what a great striker he was with a blistering 25-minute first-half hat-trick which just blew the Poles away.

You must remember the chinny wonder, Jimmy Hill, sitting next to Barry Davies in the commentary box, doing his very unseasonal Father Christmas impressions. So that was it, after a shaky start, England qualified in second place for a date at the Azteca with Paraguay on the 18 June.

Thursday 12 June 1986

French today in the afternoon. “Not [a] bad” exam, all in all.

In Mexico, Northern Ireland prepared for their journey home with a 3-0 defeat to Brazil. It was Pat Jennings’s last ever appearance and there was one goal, from Josimar with which he had absolutely no chance.

You must remember it; Big Pat certainly remembers waving at it…

Friday 13 June 1986

No exam today, just the four next week, then that’s it! Exams finished for ev… for a while at least.

Today in Mexico, Scotland played Uruguay in their final group game. Despite having lost their two previous games, a win in this one would have given them a sniff of qualification for the second phase as one of the four best third-placed teams.

As it was, Uruguay scrapped and ultimately scraped through with a nil-nil, despite having Jose Alberto Batista sent off in the first minute. Scotland, on the other hand, were out.

Saturday 14 June 1986

It was a beautiful day today.

All the better to be playing cricket, which, unfortunately, I wasn’t. A proposed game with some friends had fallen through, wholly because people “just couldn’t be bothered.”

Apathy’s much like gravity, I guess. It always wins unless you’ve got several thousand litres of rocket fuel knocking about.

Sunday 15 June 1986

It was another hot day today, and we were into the Round of 16 games in Mexico.

In the first game, the hosts defeated Bulgaria 2-0.

In the game played at the Estadio León (ko 11 pm, BST), we were treated to what was possibly the match of the tournament – it was an excellent game between Belgium and the USSR.

Eventually, the Belgians knocked out the Soviets 4-3 after extra time, having been 1-0 and then 2-1 down in normal time.

Interestingly, on ITV, both commentator Gerry Harrison and studio anchor-man Brian Moore both referred to the USSR team as ‘the Russians’ despite both being at pains to point out that the starting eleven consisted of nine players from Dynamo Kyiv… with three more on the bench. Dynamo’s hotshot, Igor Belanov, scored all the Soviet goals.

And there was me, planning an early night, as tomorrow was to be an exam double-header.

Monday 16 June 1986

Maths in the morning and German in the afternoon.

In one of my typically vague comments, I noted that both were “not difficult, and not particularly easy either.” In any case, I thought that I had passed them both.

In the next two Round of 16 games, we saw Brazil knock out Poland (4-0) and Argentina see off their neighbours Uruguay by 1-0.

Tuesday 17 June 1986

A hint of desperation in my entry for today. “Bloody Chemistry exam tomorrow. Damn, I’ve not revised.” Well, it was only Chemistry.

In the World Cup, France defeated Italy 2-0 in the Estadio Olímpico Universitario in Mexico City.

In perhaps the best performance of the whole World Cup, Morocco kept the West Germans at bay until only seconds remained on the clock. Lothar Matthäus scoring a grubber of a free kick from about a mile out broke the deadlock.

Wednesday 18 June 1986

Chemistry exam this morning – “Not too hard, I don’t think.”

We were minding a video recorder for our cousin at this point in time (‘Have we got a video?’), and I had finally managed to work out how to use it.

Good job too, because after England (Lineker and Beardsley) had knocked the stuffing out of Paraguay 3-0 in the early (European) evening kick-off, I was able to tape the later game of Denmark 1-5 Spain. Historical note: the idea of looking after video recorders was a real thing back then.

Anyway, back to the football. Having scored first, Denmark were simply blown away by Emilio Butragueno’s four-goal salvo as the Spanish romped through to their quarter-final date with Belgium.

In domestic news, tired of being a paperboy, I had posted a number of unsolicited job letters in the afternoon. As it happened, barely any of the people I had written to did me the courtesy of a reply and I was stuck with delivering papers for another two years.

Thursday 19 June 1986

That’s it! Exams finished.

My last ‘O’ Level exam was in German – reading or listening. I wasn’t confident that I’d done too well, judging by my comment.

But anyway, once I had got home at lunchtime, “I stopped at home and did nowt.”

Friday 20 June 1986

Today on my first official day of leisure (first official, pfft!) I treated myself to a video from the paper shop. And what a film to watch, Police Academy.

In retrospect, it is quite the cheesiest eighties movie. But what’s wrong with that? Accusations of a lack of political correctness, ‘wokeism’ if you will, can be levied, but at the end of the day it’s just a bit of fun.

It’s a good laugh, there are some interesting dynamics at work and the schoolboy smut apart (where you laugh because you’d only squirm otherwise), I guess that it’s really quite well observed.

I think that it was also the first time that I had heard Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s Relax. Famously banned by the pompous Mike Read on Radio One, the BBC then refused to play the track across its networks. Bang! Hello, number one… for five weeks.

The band’s performance on TOTP on 5 January 1984 must have passed me by. And I would have missed it on The Tube on Channel 4 in 1983 because Channel 4 was not yet available down our way.

But anyway, Police Academy, 20 June 1986, my ever first video. Did I rewind it before I took it back… I’d like to think that I did.

In other news, I found the time to cycle nine miles to play cricket on an old mine slag heap, known as the Sludge. And then to cycle home again and play football in the playing field, spraining my ankle in the process.

Saturday 21 June 1986

Now today, I sullied the memory.

Yes, the second film that I ever watched on video was a sequel. Police Academy II, ’nuff said (although it has to be said that II isn’t as bad as III, IV, V, etc…).

In the second test, at Headingley, England played a shocker. Already 170 behind on the first innings, plus India’s second innings total of 237, they collapsed to 90-6 at the close of play on the third day. Eventually, they lost the test by 279 runs and the series too (2-0 with one to play).

There were two quarter-finals today in the World Cup. Both went to penalties with two wins for Europe versus South America as France knocked out Brazil after the scores were tied at 1-1, and West Germany defeated the hosts after their game had finished 0-0.

Sunday 22 June 1986

What’s to be said about today? Well, let’s just get the mundanities out of the way first.

Because my ankle was in a state after spraining it on Friday, my brother did my paper round, and in putting one of my contact lenses I managed to scratch my eyeball. Sorry, I should have advised looking away, for those of you who are squeamish.

Anyway, at the Estadio Azteca, Mexico City in front of 115,000 punters, England departed the World Cup 2-1 at the hands of Argentina. Well, more accurately at the hand of one Diego Armando Maradona. But hey, whatever you say about the first goal (and it was handball) I agree with Barry Davies for the second, because it was magnificent and is arguably the best goal (he) ever scored.

England then, belatedly, woke up and pulled one back through Lineker and even had a chance to level it at 2-2, but our Gary’s not quite tall enough.

In the other game, red-hot favourites, Spain were sent packing by a determined Belgium team after a penalty shoot-out. So, the semi-finals would see an all-European clash and a Europe versus South America clash with France against West Germany and Belgium taking on Argentina.

Monday 23 June 1986

My foot was better today, and I was hopeful that I had sorted my contact lenses out.

So, I played football, using my left foot only – “bloody hard.”

As previously mentioned, England duly lost the second test match to India.

Tuesday 24 June 1986

The only surprise was that it had taken so long to get to this pass.

“I am getting pissed off with staying at home.” I complained that there was nothing to do except call for my friend, but since he stays in bed until 12 o’clock (“at least!”) this was really frustrating (the fact that I was up at 7:30 to do my paper round was perhaps the real bone of contention).

But then, I don’t ever remember being that much of a fan of staying in bed. Perhaps it was because of my paper round, but I just didn’t do that teenager thing of staying in bed until stupid times of the day – until that is, I started going out on the ale and even more so when I was a post-student dole-y for twelve months (but that was in the 90s anyway, so of no relevance here!)

My ankle was better though. So not all bad.

Wednesday 25 June 1986

Today I tried to cut the grass in the playing field.

It was, as you might expect, hopeless. When the younger kids came home from school – they still had a month left – we tried to play football in the playing field (“in grass 1ft tall”), but “to no avail.”

In the World Cup semi-finals, Argentina and West Germany both ran out 2-0 winners. Maradona scored both of Argentina’s – the first an imperious flick of his left foot to see the ball past an onrushing Jean-Marie Pfaff and the second, another of those goals. He beat three men in the centre of the Belgium half before taking on Eric Gerets to knock it back past Pfaff into the goal. He then barrelled away towards the opposite corner flag; Einstein’s theory on gravity was shaken to its core in those moments.

Germany’s win was achieved first with a freekick from Andreas Brehme which squirmed through Joel Bats on the French goal line, followed by a ninetieth-minute coup de grace from Rudi Völler.

We were all set then for what would turn out to be a fantastic final.

Thursday 26 June 1986

Finally!

The council cut the grass in the playing field. But “they might have well not bothered (sic)” as they left the cuttings there, expecting us to plough through them.

Bloody hopeless!

Friday 27 June 1986

A bit of a contradiction in my diary entries for today.

I don’t want to harp on about this kinda stuff, but I do feel that it merits some mention. You know, the paradox between growing up in the 1980s and all the freedoms that we had, and not being old enough to appreciate them.

So… here goes, on the one hand I was “bored,” and then on the other I watched a recording of a programme from the previous night about the Battle of the Somme.

The programme had been shown because 1 July would be the seventieth anniversary of the battle’s start on 1 July 1916.

Vital statistics: 19,240 British dead in a total British casualty list of 57,470.

And that’s just the British! And here’s me, a spotty sixteen-year-old oik moaning about being bored.

In my world, change was afoot, or I was beginning to comment on it in my diary. My final comment about today was “not long to go till (sic) 6 form now.”

Saturday 28 June 1986

Ooh, this is a little saucy. Or was it?

It was a scorching hot day, so we went swimming in the brook, right where the cows come down to get a drink and do other things… Horrible, yes, disgusting even, and even potentially dangerous? Well, I’m still here writing this.

It was actually a curve on the brook where there was a gentle sandy shelf leading down to it on one side, with an eight-foot cliff on the other. We would swim across and then clamber up the red clay embankment in order to jump into the relatively deep pool underneath the cliff on the outside of the bend.

It was a classic study of erosion and deposition showing how river and other water courses carve their way across the countryside.

Anyway, so far so mundane. It must have been the heat, or the combination of heat and accompanying lack of clothes down there in the brook, because we cooked up a plan to invite some girls (including Hayley – the love of my life at the time – pity I never told her…) into the house whilst mum and dad were out in the evening.

So far so tame, as what they actually did when they came was to stand at the back door, giggling as girls do, drink our coffee and then sod off home again. Boo! Hiss! I made a note that we were “going there next week”… but I don’t think we ever did.

Sunday 29 June 1986

Only one entry for today, “World Cup Final (Mexico City), Argies v W. Germans 7:00 pm on both ITV and BBC.” It was always thus, wasn’t it?

Given a choice between ITV or BBC for coverage of a game, then ITV always lost as far as I was concerned. I don’t know really what it was, can’t quite put my finger on it. Brian Moore versus John Motson, much of a muchness really, both could be equally annoying.

Then there was the studio anchor, Des Lynam versus Elton Welsby, mmm, perhaps this was it. I had no time for Welsby that much is a fact, however, when Des defected to ITV in the nineties, I still felt that coverage on the BBC was hundreds of times better. It must have been a gut feeling. One of those, in your water things.

Anyway, in a great game (moot point – great game, or good game with great finish?), Argentina moved into a 2-0 lead with goals from Jose Luis Brown and Jorge Valdano. Karl-Heinz Rummenigge pulled one goal back on 74 minutes and then with just about 10 to go, Rudi Voller equalised. But who would win it?

Momentum was with the West Germans, but only four minutes later, it was Jorge Burruchaga who took Maradona’s pass to win the game and the World Cup for Argentina.

Monday 30 June 1986

“Induction week at VI form starts.”

The actual business of sixth form wasn’t so bad after all. However, in my desperate attempt to appear hip and cool by not wearing my specs, of course, I had to go and rub my eye, make a mess of it, be unable to wear my contact lenses and therefore have no choice but to wear my sodding glasses for the rest of the week anyway.

This for a young man lacking in confidence anyway was a bit of a downer really and was portentous of my whole two years at sixth form.