Saw a tweet that today was the anniversary of the start of Italia 90 and was thinking about how it was the first World Cup I can vividly remember. That this was during the time when Scotland made it to tourneys probably helped.
I was born in 77 and can remember odd bits of Mexico 86 - I remember 9 year old me found a striker called Rats scoring past a keeper called Bats amusing at the time - but Italia 90 is the first one where I can solidly remember loads about the tournament and a lot of the games. The fact the games were on at a decent time probably helped as I think a lot of the games in Mexico were on when I'd been packed off to bed.
So, as we have no tournaments to look forward to this summer, what was the first World Cup you can really remember or first started really paying attention?
Oh and Ciao was a great wee mascot.
Italia 90 was mine too. In 1986, I was aware something was going on called the World Cup but had no real idea what it was all about. I knew there was a Madonna and a Maradona, had no idea what either looked like so I thought they were the same person.
1990 I was 8 years old and just starting to get into football right before the World Cup started. I think playground football had started for the first time at my school, or at least I had started joining in for the first time, I don't remember much football in the playground before that. I had always been nominally a Rangers fan and knew the names of a few players, but had no idea really what the league and cups were all about. I suppose I must have been getting into it more through the 89-90 season, though my awareness was still pretty dim at the time, but a few memories that stick out include:
- Mo Johnston signing - I got that it was "controversial", that we were a bit split on whether it was a good thing (one of my very earliest football memories was hating the sight of Mo Johnston in green and white hoops with a passion, so even 8 year old me was wrestling with conflicted feelings about this), and my mum disapproved because of how much he was earning. But also aware that they were raging and that was a good thing.
- I was aware of the very quick shift from "not sure about Mo" to "fucking love Mo" once he scored a certain goal
- vague memory of the news about Scotland qualifying and McCoist's great goal v Norway
- depressed at the scum putting us out of the Scottish Cup. In my life to this point, I especially associated the Scottish Cup with them winning and us losing to them
- first times I remember listening to football news on the radio - Liverpool v Palace semi-final
- don't really remember knowing much about the league but remember seeing the scenes from Ibrox on the last day of the season or whenever we were presented with the league trophy. Think they showed it on Grandstand (would they have shown this?) live at the end of the game, but it might have been Sportscene on the Saturday night.
- Scum losing Scottish Cup to Aberdeen on penalties. Loved it.
- the Scotland v Argentina game in the buildup to the World Cup, and us being the "best team in the world."
- my dad took me to a couple of the pre-World Cup friendlies at Hampden v. East Germany and I think Poland. Andy Goram in goals. Remember on the radio after one of those hearing a report from the England friendly (v Czechoslovakia?) and they were absolutely raving about this boy Gascoigne's performance
Anyway, that was that, the next thing that happened it was a Friday afternoon and suddenly there's football on the TV. Argentina v Cameroon, I remember Emlyn Hughes slating Maradona at half-time. Stunned as Cameroon won, then pretty soon we were on to rushing home from school to watch the end of Costa Rica v Scotland - and we were sure to win that, right? The rest is history, but I was hooked and came out of that tournament 100% obsessed with football. The best World Cup is always the one that happens when you're about 6-10 years old, but I think Italia 90 was special in a way that at least some of the World Cups since just can't match.