Today 30 years ago

[G-Man]

What do you remember better: the Hand of God or that incredible goal?

I was working in a restaurant in Chelsea at the time. We had a tiny portable TV at the dishwasher's station, and followed the game in and out. I saw the handball but missed the 2-0. I also remember Lineker's late miss from John Barnes' cross.

Ha, and just as I typed Barnes' name he started talking on the pundits panel on South African TV.

[Wouter D]

Today 30 years ago

I was one and a half years old. I remember nothing.

[San Bernardhinault]

Today 30 years ago

For some reason, I wasn't concerned about the handball until the papers went mad the next day and then everyon at school was upset. I watched it and was mostly pissed off about England's defending. I was watching on a tiny black and white TV with a fuzzy picture, so I guess I didn't see it clearly.

Actually, I was confused about both goals because of the poor picture quality. I was convinced, until the replays, that Maradona's second was in fact a Terry Butcher own-goal as he slid in for the failed tackle at the end of the run.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Today 30 years ago

It was a hot sunny day in Devon. I'd been playing golf with my Dad all day at Teignmouth. The game kicked off early, about 5pm BST, so we were driving home during the first half, and it sounded a fairly uneventful match. Argentina had been among the pre-tournament favourites, but Lineker's sudden burst of form (prompted by Bobby Robson being forced to accept Bryan Robson and Ray Wilkins were playing no further part in the tournament) had raised levels of optimism to a state not seen since before, well, the last World Cup.

We got home just in time to put the telly on to see THAT goal. My recollection is thinking "how did he reach that?". It simply didn't occur to me that Maradona might have punched it in. I just thought Shilton had made a terrible error. Clearly the ref did, too. One of the commentators was shouting about a handball but it wasn't until the replays (which in 1986 came about two minutes later) that we realised what had happened. To this day, I still think Shilton should have got his fist to the ball ahead of Maradona's. He had about six inches on him to start with, and wasn't trying to pretend he WASN'T punching it.

That second goal was one of the most extraordinary things I've ever seen on a pitch. Still think Terry Butcher might actually have been the one who stuck it past Shilts at the end. But what a run.

Gary Lineker nodding the ball back out of the net, off the back of his head, in the dying moments, remains one of my most painful England watching moments, alongside Gazza JUST failing to reach that cross against Germany in 1996.

[multipleman78]

Today 30 years ago

Lineker doesn't nod the ball back out. The defender performs one of the greatest clearances in World Cup history. He gets under Lineker and back headers it off Lineker and out. Remarkable defending.

[Gangster Octopus]

Today 30 years ago

I learnt that the Irish hate me.

[tee rex]

Today 30 years ago

I saw the two biggest World Cup controversies of the 1980's - the hand of god, and Schumacher's assault in '82 - as they happened on TV, and in both cases saw nothing wrong. Until the replays.

Picture quality being what it was back then, you'd like to think the officials had a better view. Still, it does temper my rants at refs ... I had one chance, and I missed history.

Ranting at Terry Fenwick, on the other hand, was entirely justified.

[Big Boobs and FIRE!]

Today 30 years ago

My dad was a professor at Reading University and in 1990, he was hosting a visiting Professor from Venice.

He brought him round our house to watch a few of the games. One of these was the England v Argentina game. When Maradona scored his first goal, the handball had gone unnoticed to all in the room apart from the Italian gent who grabbed hold of my wrist and started pointing at my hand whilst exclaiming wildly.

There then proceeded an uneasy game of give us a clue, with the Italian not letting go of my arm, pointing at it accusingly. With my parents wondering what an earth I had done, and my sisters boyfriend kindly enquiringly if I'd had his wallet away, eventually, after much tooing and froing between my hand and the TV, it became clear that he was trying to tell us that the ball had been punched in.

We therefore taught him the phrase 'hand ball' and within minutes, my dad had also introduced him to 'for fucks sake Fenwick', which the Italian seemed shocked about as up to that time, my dad had just been a gentlemanly academic.

The Italian moved on to become the president of the Venice Port Authority and I visited him when I was at university as I was doing a dissertation on Straddle Carriers. He immediately brought up the hand ball story and then the cursing, of which I was able to fill him in of the Terry Fenwick detail which he was grateful. He then took me to Venice v Porto in a pre-season friendly which was noticeable for a Porto player punching a Venice player unconscious in the first 30 seconds.

About 15 years ago I took a new girlfriend to Venice. Wandering around, we bumped into a pack of men in suits, headed up by our old friend. He recognised me and invited us for dinner that evening. What my dad had failed to update me on was in the meantime, this person had become Mayor of Venice, so what we turned up to that evening was less a bit of supper, and actually some sort of civic reception (not for us I hasten to add). At the dinner, we were introduced to a number of people, some of whom knew my dad, but all of them were recited the ,fucking fucking terry Fenwick' story by the host.

Role on another 10 years and I was in a hotel in Madrid watching BBC News. The story was about a then relatively unknown Nigel Farage, having a blazing row about Eco-tourism, with an Italian MEP. However, on closer inspection, the MEP was none other than the Professor/postmaster/mayor from times passed, who had now moved into left wing euro politics. I would like to think Farage and he later made up in the bar with Leffe bleu and a story of a gentrified academic being driven to potty mouthed abuse my immobile Englsh centre backs, whilst his son has his limbs forcefully displayed round a front room, in order to demonstrate the win at all costs attitude that cocaine abuse brings to South America super-footballers.

[G-Man]

Today 30 years ago

Great story. Though more likely your friend left the conversation saying, "Fuck's sake, fucking Farrage."

[ad hoc]

Today 30 years ago

I was at Glastonbury. Madness were on stage. Between songs the crowd chanted "What's the score" and Suggs, stoned out of his head, either rambled inconsequentially or just started saying numbers "Three Nil Four Two Fifteen..."

[seand]

Today 30 years ago

I'm still not sure how a six-foot-two goalkeeper can be beaten in the air by a gloriously demonic midget, albeit a gloriously demonic midget gaining a couple of inches height with his fist.

[Jah Womble]

Today 30 years ago

I was in the process of graduating from art school during that World Cup. There'd been a fair few fretful, late-night drinkathons during the group games, but this was scheduled for European prime time. (Obviously.) My recollection is that a good number of people were still unaware of the handball the following morning - TV footage having to some remained inconclusive. There was still debate until that classic photo was published some while after. So, most of the talk was, unsurprisingly, of the sensational second goal: the hand-wringing and gnarling retribution came later.

I think I cheered up enough to watch the Spain/Belgium tie later on.

multipleman78 wrote: Lineker doesn't nod the ball back out. The defender performs one of the greatest clearances in World Cup history. He gets under Lineker and back headers it off Lineker and out. Remarkable defending.

Julio Olarticoechea - probably the most extraordinary defensive header I've ever seen. (Lineker himself was on TV last night waxing lyrical about it.)

[jwdd27]

Today 30 years ago

That's the thing that strikes me, how slow Shilton was to react. The ball was in the air a long time and Shilton didn't have far to come, could have comfortably caught it and sent Diego flying in the process.
Steve Hodge, who judging by last night's ITV4 documentary remains unpopular with his team mates, maintains it was a backpass, and that sort of backpass wasn't uncommon at the time, put some air on it and the keeper will claim it.

4 years later and Shilton is even slower to react as his 40 year old frame is unable to backpedal just a little bit faster to deal with a deflected German free kick.

Greatest ever goalkeeper cost us two world cups.

[Jah Womble]

Today 30 years ago

'Greatest ever'? Hmm.

[Giggler]

Today 30 years ago

I was five. I remember Challenger earlier that year but I don't remember this. One of my favourite things about it is the picture that I can't find online of Maradona celebrating in front of a load of England fans, sunburnt in small silky-effect shorts and with bleached-blonde wedge haircuts who are to a man making wanker gestures.

Bury's kit in 86/87 was the Umbro kit that England wore this afternoon, but with MILLIKEN splayed across the torso.

[Kevin S]

Today 30 years ago

Mouton D wrote: I was one and a half years old. I remember nothing.

Three and a half, and likewise.

But still, those first three touches for his second goal. They're just unreal.

[Borracho]

Today 30 years ago

I was ten. We were on holiday in Ibiza.

I'd watched nearly every match of Mexico 86 up to that point. I was a bit footballed out by this stage (and England were coming off the back of two easy 3-0 processions so I also had a sneaking feeling they would win), so while the game was on I stayed in the hotel pool, splashing around with another kid.

The hotel bar was right next to the pool. There was also another bar across the street, within maybe 20 yards.

After about an hour we heard an almighty cacophony of noise coming from both places, equal parts euphoria and uproar. Then silence again. Then, a few minutes later, an even louder commotion. It sounded like absolute carnage in both places.

I got out of the pool, ran into our apartment, towelled myself down and rushed down to the bar just in time to see Lineker pull one back for England. (EDIT: that's probably not right, seeing as more than 20 minutes elapsed between Maradona's second and Lineker's, but you get the general idea.)

I still regret not seeing the second Maradona goal live as it happened.

[Hot Orange]

Today 30 years ago

I was 14 and remember it well.

As others have mentioned, it wasn't at all obvious initially that it was handball. Barry Davies didn't call it in the commentary, as far as I recall. Maradona obviously concealed the offence rather brilliantly, yet it wasn't long before blame was shifted to the referee, with many suggesting that he clearly wasn't up to the job because he was from Tunisia.

[Borracho]

Today 30 years ago

Gangster Octopus wrote: I learnt that the Irish hate me.

I love you, GO. Passively, of course . . .

[Capybara]

Today 30 years ago

jwdidier27 wrote: Greatest ever goalkeeper cost us two world cups.

Three if you include 1973 ...

[Various Artist]

Today 30 years ago

Kevchenkeau wrote:

I was one and a half years old. I remember nothing.

Three and a half, and likewise.
But still, those first three touches for his second goal. They're just unreal.

I was seven, and I still remember nothing. To my immense retrospective frustration, I should add – I was simply a slightly late developer when it came to taking an interest in football, it appears, given that most people (I've realised since) were some way ahead of me in this; I didn't get into it until I was nine, early in the 1988/9 season. So I missed not only all the dramas and historic moments of the 1986 World Cup, which I was eminently old enough for, but Norwich's first forays to the upper reaches of the top flight, and then Coventry and Wimbledon's FA Cup triumphs and the 1988 European Championship too, by a much more narrow and thus even more frustrating margin. I was dimly aware of Maradona in the following years (once I'd separated him in my head from Madonna), but only really learned about the goals/controversy vs England from my World Cup '90 sticker album's Great Goals and Great Games sections. Would be fascinated to know, actually, if there's anyone here who came to the sport at a more advanced age.

To digress, I think it was more or less any sport, not just football. I know I don't remember the great Formula 1 battles of that era either, for instance, nor Torville & Dean or Eric Bristow or Steve Davis v Dennis Taylor, with the lone exception being Pat Cash's 1987 clamber into the Centre Court stands after winning Wimbledon. My first memories of more or less everything – Mansell, Prost and Senna, Becker and Edberg, the Seoul Olympics, the Five Nations, England cricket Tests, the FA Cup, Greg Louganis hitting his head on the diving board, Calcavecchia winning the Open, Ellery Hanley (that little hitch-kick step as he crossed the try line for Wigan) and Martin Offiah, Frank Bruno fighting Mike Tyson – only arrive all in a rush c.1988-9, beginning essentially with Ben Johnson 'winning' the 100m in 9.79s with his bloodshot eyeballs popping out of his head.
I'd blame all this on the curiously vague attitude of my parents towards interesting me in anything, but then again according to my dad I was having a bad night on the night of the legendary 1985 world snooker final between Davis and Taylor, so he remembers sitting on my bed reading to me with the decisive stages of the match on the black & white telly in the corner of the room – which he must have brought in specially. Needless to say, I have no recollection even of this, for crying out loud, so it must have been partly my own fault. Though in that instance I suppose the epic drama of seeing two men in bow ties pot a succession of indistinguishable grey balls might not necessarily have gripped my 5-year-old half-asleep mind, but still.

[Mr Beast]

Today 30 years ago

The pub in England I watched the match in blamed Shilton, the referee, Hodge and Maradona for the first goal. In that order.

The second goal elicited a few gasps and grudging respect, but mostly silence. Then a search for a scapegoat began and settled on Terry Fenwick. The consensus that Maradona is a despicable cheat started far later and was tabloid driven, what with Talksport blissfully not yet existing.

[Calvert]

Today 30 years ago

Gangster Octopus wrote: I learnt that the Irish hate me.

Well, that's not true.
Unless you're Oliver Cromwell?

Like everyone else I didn't spot the handball. I was probably too busy jumping around the living room and missed the replays.
For his second goal, however, I think I was stuck in my chair going 'wow. Just WOW'

[Tactical Genius]

Today 30 years ago

Watched this game in Nigeria.
I remember at school extolling the virtues of Glenn Hoddle and telling everyone who would listen that Bryan Robson was the best midfielder in the world.
You could hear the cheers as both goals went in, England were not a popular football team. Two other things I remember were a powercut at full time and The Advertising hoardings around the pitch for Bata shoes. Bata is the Yoruba word for shoes.

[Borracho]

Today 30 years ago

Hodge swapped shirts with Maradona at the final whistle, and apparently spent a fair bit of the last 30 years trying and failing to sell it for serious megabucks, before admitting defeat and putting it in a football museum somewhere.

What's largely forgotten about the handball goal is that it was immediately preceded by another beautiful piece of skill by Maradona, waltzing past three England players.