Imagine if you could jump into a time machine and choose any sporting event. Which ones would you chose and why?
Try ranking a top three. It’s tough, but here are my choices, bearing in mind restricting such a wishlist is a torturous exercise.
1930 – Sir Donald Bradman makes 254 versus England at Lord’s
Sir Donald Bradman is the greatest batsman of all time. In 1930 he was at his young, hungry, dashing and dominant best on his first tour of England. He made a record 974 runs in the series, including 309 in a single day at Headingley.
Bradman batted 338 times in first-class cricket and scored 117 centuries. He said at the end of his career the 254 he made against England at Lord’s in 1930 was his most perfect innings.
What would you give to watch the prefect display from the greatest batsman of all?
1974 – Rumble in the Jungle
Nothing quite compares to the hype of a heavyweight boxing bout and of all the fights to have witnessed surely the Rumble in the Jungle would be the peak of the summit.
The great American sports journalist Jim Murray, when it was announced the fight would be staged in Zaire, joked “wasn’t the top of Mount Everest available”.
But Zaire, what a strange, exotic and colourful place to be in 1974. How about the Soul Power music festival before the fight. BB King and James Brown rocking.
The stadium held 100,000 people and the fight was held at 3am. George Foreman was 38-0 at the time, Muhammad Ali apparently past it.
The first round was explosive. The middle rounds featured the bizarre but brilliant ‘rope a dope’ and then the shock knockout by Ali and a wild storm about an hour after the fight.
2000 – All Blacks versus Australia, Sydney
I remember watching this game on free-to-air TV delayed as a youngster. Our family couldn’t afford pay television at the time. The All Blacks led 24-0 after six minutes and we thought it was a mistake. Were we watching the highlights?
Nope!
Australia had drawn level by half-time. The second half was a cracker and the game was decided in the last-minute when Jonah Lomu scored in the corner.
Played in front of a world record crowd of 109,874 people, even Australian captain John Eales admitted in defeat it was the greatest game of rugby he had ever played in.
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He was born 1905, 1904 or 1908 according to various reports, in Wairoa, Hawkes Bay, and is remembered as one of the great Māori players.
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